The legacy media has been circling the drain for years. We've all seen it, you have all read about it right here on Twitchy, and during this election season, it became glaringly obvious that the disease was terminal.
Sure, they were still around, being wheeled about like former President Jimmy Carter. But, just like Carter, any person with eyes, ears, and a brain could see that the media was not well and death would almost be a mercy at this point. Even some members of the media knew it themselves, as one television executive claimed to New York Magazine that 'a Trump victory would mean the mainstream media is dead.'
Well, this morning, we can report that the legacy media finally sent out its final death rattle last night as Donald Trump became the 47th President of the United States.
The time of death was 1:17 AM on November 6. It was pronounced by world-renowned physician, Dr. Elon Musk, MD.
You are the media now
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2024
The media has died. Long live the media.
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Because Musk is 100 percent correct. The legacy media is no longer relevant to the national discourse. They exist simply to be mocked (a specialty of ours at Twitchy) or ignored. NONE of the narratives they tried to sell in the closing weeks of the election had any impact. Trump won in the closest thing that could approach a landslide in modern American politics.
Votes are still being counted in some states, but the likely outcome is Trump winning 300+ electoral votes AND the popular vote. Moreover, Republicans took control of the Senate and are projected to maintain control of the House.
And the media still doesn't get why. That's why they died in the wee hours this morning. We've shown you some of their death throes and their meltdowns. There will be more to come. But, like a chicken with its head cut off, it will take some time for the body to stop moving.
But the death of the media does not mean the death of journalism or reporting. As Dr. Musk stated, that lives on. It lives in independent journalism, it lives on Substack, it lives in The Free Press -- of course, it lives at Twitchy and our Townhall family -- and it lives most of all on Twitter. But it has departed cable networks and corporate newsrooms, just as the soul departs the body.
The fact that the mainstream media HATES Musk is all the proof you need that they are now among the not-so-dearly departed.
A distraught @karaswisher: "@ElonMusk will use [X] as a propaganda organ, which is precisely why he bought it. People said he was losing money & it’s clear it was not about money. This was a great investment by Elon Musk & Donald Trump ... he spent hundreds of millions to make… pic.twitter.com/JnXRlw9iYP
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 6, 2024
Oh, Kara Swisher. Bless her heart. She is still in the denial and anger phases. She will probably never get to acceptance.
But her pure projection here is exactly why the media is dead. They accuse Musk of propaganda while ignoring all of the lies they have told us, from Russia collusion to COVID vaccines to 'very fine people.' She also ignores that censorship is what the previous Twitter regime engaged in, yes, including actual collusion with the U.S. government.
In truth, Musk buying Twitter might be the most single significant event in modern history for both the protection of free speech and for the survival of journalism beyond the corpse of the mainstream media. There is not a single journalist of note in the world who does not post their reports or articles on Twitter. But unlike the one-way communication that the mainstream media knew and loved, those journalists do not control the narrative. Twitter STARTS conversations about the news. Reliable news gets amplified, propaganda (yes, even propaganda from conservatives) gets denounced, mocked, or otherwise discredited.
In other words, Twitter is a meritocracy of journalism. When was the last time anyone said that about any mainstream media outlet or reporter?
Just as importantly, and as Musk stated, Twitter enables any of us, all of us to be the journalists. We don't need to have hundreds of thousands of followers to be a news source (OK, that does help a little, LOL), you simply have to be credible. We feature people like that all the time at Twitchy: small accounts who report things that would never be reported by legacy media. We love that and we love them.
True, it requires some judgment to discern the quality news from the clickbait, the scams, or -- pardon my language -- the bullsh*t. But WE are the ones who make those judgments. It is not an executive editor or producer or news director somewhere who tells us what we should or should not believe (or worse, their deep-pocket benefactors like Big Pharma companies).
WE do that.
This is the reason Twitter is the top news app in more than 140 countries. This is the reason Twitter is considered the primary app in the world for breaking news. Musk explained it all very succinctly this past summer:
This is why 𝕏 has become the #1 News App in over 140 countries worldwide.
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 20, 2024
𝕏 is the new model of news.
pic.twitter.com/Ti6x7hIJs6
'Advocating the wisdom of the people.' Imagine any legacy media outlet expressing that as its credo or its business model. You can't.
When Musk bought Twitter, he often liked to ask users questions (like whether he should reinstate Trump's previously banned account) and he promised to abide by the results with the expression, Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
As much as anything, that is the reason the legacy media died last night and Musk pronounced its death.
The American people spoke in a loud and clear voice on Election Day yesterday. They delivered a mandate to Trump. What was the legacy media's conclusion? It was the people who were the problem.
Imagine having that level of hubris and not being struck down like characters in the Greek tragedies of old.
Elon Musk knows the truth. WE are not the problem. WE are the future.
And now? WE are the media.
