The Best News for Legacy Media? It’s All That a 78-Year-Old Trump Really Cares About

AP Photo/Matt Freed

The re-election of Donald Trump has reverberated throughout the media industry.

So many cable news experts who regularly share their insight and analysis not only got it wrong, but seemed to get it wrong on many levels. The chattering class prioritized a much tighter type of horserace coverage than what was ultimately revealed on election night, as if wishcasting that into existence was within the pundit’s class power. And the issues that we were told mattered most to voters? Nope.

It was, no doubt, a major repudiation of the political media class.

But it’s not just the coverage and analysis now in question. It’s an ominous sign for a business already concerned about collapsing that both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris prioritized “alternative media outlets” over journalistically sound interviews with legacy outlets.

Almost overnight, the very notion of “mainstream media” shifted away from iconic news institutions to the constellation of pro-Trump outlets and platforms that starts with Fox News and includes Elon Musk’s X, digital websites like Daily Wire, massive podcasters like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Patrick Bet-David. These outlets and voices are no longer outliers, and part of their business model is taking a sledgehammer to the legacy media it aims to replace —which now seems as anachronistic as a hard copy catalog or terrestrial radio station.

It’s difficult to envision how traditional outlets — especially cable news networks like MSNBC and, to a lesser extent, CNN — will find a foothold in this new political media ecosystem. Cord-cutters and the rise of social media videos on Instagram and TikTok are fuse-like catalysts hastening the irrelevance of linear cable news programming. In some instances, cable news executives are so eager to pivot to a new digital model that they may be making the death of the money-making linear product come sooner.

Ironically, one person figures prominently in keeping these outlets relevant, and it just so happens to be the same guy who led to this problem in the first place: Donald Trump.

No one cares more about traditional media than Trump. He is more obsessed with how the networks and newspapers cover him than any other who served in this position. Sure, he regularly derides the coverage as unfair, regardless of the facts, but he pays super close attention. Like any expert in the professional wrestling theatrics known as ‘kayfabe,’ Trump knows that he needs a heel to ensure his base sees him as the hero. Enter the media to be the bad guy for him.

While the Trump campaign effectively leveraged alternative media to reach and motivate low-propensity voters, it’s tough to imagine Trump himself actually listening to podcasts. Instead, he heeded advisors who wisely saw value in appearing on as many of these shows as possible. He hustled to appear on nearly every single one, sometimes blowing off a traditional hit on CNBC to do something else. It seems to have been a significant part of a winning strategy. Future historians may very well call this the first podcast election.

Yet while he will laud Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and any other sycophantic supporter with a microphone, cable news and newspapers remain where 78-year-old Trump gets his news. That means these stodgy old institutions will stay front and center in a second Trump term.

Maggie Haberman captured this dynamic during a recent appearance on CNN’s Inside Politics when she was asked by Manu Raju how she sees a second Trump administration compared to the first. She said Trump will try to jam through many of his priorities in the first six months, from tariffs to immigration enforcement, and that the media will play a prominent role in shaping how those moves are perceived.

“One of the things that tends to be a bulwark against what he wants to do is press coverage,” she noted. “I understand that his campaign has very effectively used podcasts and non-mainstream media to sell his message.”

“Trump is still, you know, he’s an almost 80-year-old man who does care about legacy media and headlines he sees and cable coverage he sees,” Haberman continued.”We’ll see how he reacts to it as he goes in because that’s what happened last time.”

In other words, the leader of the free world will almost certainly obsess over the very same media coverage he has obsessed over since he entered politics roughly a decade ago.

Like the median cable news viewer, Trump is a septuagenarian. He’s not reading policy books or spending an hour listening to a Ben Shapiro podcast while furiously pedaling on the White House Peloton. He’s paying close attention to what cable news pundits and hosts say about him because that’s what he’s always done and almost certainly going to do in the next four years.

So, the good news for cable news executives, on-air talent, writers, and producers? America just re-elected its Television Watcher-in-Chief last Tuesday. His ongoing commitment to fixating on linear television might just be the best thing legacy news outlets have going for them as their relevance continues to wane.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.