By Kodi Barth
We already knew that the print newspaper was dying. What we didn’t know is that all other mainstream news channels, the prime-time TV news and the radio news broadcast, will one day be dead, too.
The triumph of Donald Trump has taught us that all legacy news channels are dying.
How? Because exit polls in the November 5 US presidential contest between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris showed the coalition that helped push Trump over the top – young people and Latino – doesn’t get its news from dwindling print, but from social media.
The heading by Washington-based Politico said: “An Overlooked — and Increasingly Important — Clue to How People Vote”.
Historically, US political analysis has focused on the changing behaviour of demographic groups. This November 9 story pointed out that this tradition has ignored a big determinant of political behaviour: where people get their news and information.
In the past decade, the story said, it’s increasingly social media. “NBC asked the question in April when President Joe Biden was still in the race, and the results were dramatic,” the story said. “Among people who got their news from “newspapers,” Biden was winning 70-21. Among people who got their news from “YouTube/Google,” Trump led 55-39.”
This is startling. In 2020 Biden won 18- to 21-year-olds by 60-36 per cent. This year Harris won only 55-42 per cent, according to Politico. Only three per cent of US seniors get their information from social media. But for 18- to 29-year-olds, it’s a whopping 46 per cent.
The rest of the world is not insulated from this trend. In Kenya, “What’s trending?” is now synonymous with, “What’s going on in social media?” Research may still be behind here, but you can bet the house that it’s not wazee swimming in social media.
Assume the numbers were similar across the world. Logically, those three per cent of older newspaper consumers are shrinking. The 46 per cent of younger audiences are expanding.
Put bluntly, older audiences are dying. Younger audiences, their children, are growing. Do you imagine the children’s children will learn from their grandparents or from their parents? Do you imagine our children’s children will innovate forward or backward?
Civilization evolves forward. It doesn’t fall backward. Our children’s children will consume news even more differently than our children – far more differently than us.
That is why the newspapers – and traditional news sources – are dying.
Social media was already killing the newspaper. Now it’s killing TV and the radio, too. Legacy media must take this seriously.
