Traditional news networks struggled for credibility during the recent election campaign while podcasts offered quality screen time and better stats to both Trump and Harris, with the former actively preferring podcasts over newscasts.
By H. Mallikarjun (Sem. I)
Americans have spoken, and their vote powered former president Donald J. Trump’s return as the 47th President of the United States of America. As the curtains fell on one of the most consequential and polarizing election campaigns in world democracies, the scale of Trump’s mandate — with a projected 312 electoral college votes and 50.4% of the popular vote — became clear.
Numerous analyses are awaited in ensuing months studying reasons for the victory of Trump and fall of Democrat presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. But a key observation is certain: that the presidential campaign is as significant as the result, if not more. It had an irreversible impact on quite a few domains in American society, including the media. An amalgamation of public opinion and political strategy reordered the prominences of different media used for dissemination of information. With news networks losing credibility among many groups in pursuit of ratings and shaping opinion, new media like podcasts on YouTube and Spotify rose in popularity. Influencers offered insights into the ideologies, careers and personal lives of the candidates, and laced them with humour or contemporary issues.
Television started its association with American election campaigning with the coverage of presidential nominating conventions of the two major parties In 1952. But it gained precedence over audio broadcasting only after the first televised debate in 1960, between Democrat Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican counterpart Richard Nixon. While those listening on radio indicated that Nixon won, people who watched the TV and saw Kennedy’s poise and posture thought otherwise. By the end of that decade, CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite known for his coverages of the Watergate Scandal and Vietnam War was “the most trusted man in America” according to public opinion surveys. The following two decades saw the then Big Three – ABC,NBC and CBS dominate ratings and advertising dollars while also witnessing the initiation of public broadcasting systems and expansion of cable news, largely in the form of CNN. By the 1980s, politicians and government leaders who were by then familiar with the workings of television, started to exploit the medium to their own ends. Even as these networks acquired by conglomerates allowed this exploitation to an extent, journalistic values were upheld and also demonstrated effectively at times of war, recession and calamity over the next thirty years.
As the information age spread at an unimaginably fast pace, people started to feel the presence of social media in daily lives, and news media coherently started supplying news and real time updates on their websites. By 2013, the cable news audience by all measures declined. According to Pew Research Centre, the combined median prime-time channel viewership of the three major news channels — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — dropped 11% to about 3 million, the smallest it had been since 2007. News networks found it’s messiah in billionaire businessman and media personality Donald Trump who was then planning to run for President on a Republican ticket. As commercial media began to observe that coverage of Trump resulted in higher ratings, he benefitted from free media by $2 billion, more than any other candidate while getting more minutes and less analysis on what he spoke. And as these channels realized over the next four years, the favour was not returned as was evident in Trump’s disdain towards select networks and strategic use of the phrase ‘fake news’.
Amidst these financial and ethical crises in TV news broadcasting, creative and dynamic multimedia integrated with highly accessible social media platforms now blurred the lines between TV news and digital news in a way that news channels tried earlier with their websites and social media handles. But the difference lies in the massive engagement, content flexibility, limited financial obligation, minimal agenda and more room for unconventional opinion that influencers, thinkers and journalists enjoy on new media, particularly formats like podcasts that offer time to discuss and debate complex issues which is rarely the case with rigidly scheduled TV newscasts.
Podcasts emerged as 21st century’s alternative to radio programs later evolving as downloadable fun, elaborate and thematic discussions with one or more guests, ranging from comedy and entertainment to news and self-improvement. Podcasting was made easy by hosting companies like SoundCloud allowing podcasters to produce content and distribute on streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube where people saw and heard them. The podcast industry in America thrived with quantity and quality on the backdrop of vast exposure to information and social media. Awareness also soared and podcasting is no longer a niche medium.
The entire situation was symphony for Trump’s campaign advisers. They knew that he would not get any love from the news industry this time around and Trump couldn’t worry less as he swept the Republican primaries with high favourability ratings among Republican supporters. Nevertheless, his team recognized the importance of media coverage in the White House race and chalked out a strategy that would give him more screen time, less confrontations and ultimately get the better of those great podcast statistics. While Trump’s old friend and UFC president Dana White facilitated these events, advisers also credit Trump’s youngest son Baron Trump for recognizing trending channels in the podcast industry.
For the apprentice who embraced tabloids, reality TV, Twitter and cable news, the shift to podcasts and online streamers wasn’t difficult given that he also gets to ditch CBS’s 60 minutes. Trump’s trusted adviser James Miller says that one key goal of the podcasts was to generate a relatability factor with the former president. “When you’re able to communicate the relatability, then voters feel even more strongly that the policies you’re pushing for are being done because you want to help them”, Miller added. The format also allowed Trump’s art of weaving long and meandering stories into the message he wants to put across, which he fondly termed as ‘the weave’. And so a streak of podcasts with diverse demographics and influencers from different walks of life continued, that later seemed to be positive weights balancing narratives drawn from unfavourable opinion polls and poor debate performance.
Trump started with YouTuber Logan Paul’s Impaulsive interview where he spoke about the first debate with Biden, raising $140 million as a convicted felon and friendships with Putin and Kim. It set the tone for streamers like Adin Ross who did a 1-hour stream with half a million people tuned in to see him please and entertain Trump, while the latter found himself interacting with live chat. A complete contrast was his talk on the All-in podcast hosted by four venture capitalists in the tech industry, where he spoke extensively about his economic policies to an audience largely bent towards capitalist ideals.
Trump opened about his late brother’s alcohol addiction and why he refrained from drinking and smoking, on “This Past Weekend with Theo Von” that garnered over 15 million views. Asking important questions about healthcare, medical debt, drug lobbyists and opioid crisis, Theo strikes casual conversations aimed at getting simple and practical solutions from the presidential candidate. Trump talked about surviving the assassination attempt and aftermath in great detail on the Flagrant podcast that got 8 million views. Relatively serious audience saw him speak about psychology of winning, politics as a dirty game, power, mortality and religion with MIT computer scientist Lex Fridman. After venting out on Kamala Harris, Obama, Biden and mainstream media on entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, he criticized Democrats for pushing ‘wokeness’ and attacking manhood and religion in America on the Outkick podcast.
His known passion for golf was displayed in a fundraiser match play versus a US Open champion. Just ten days prior to final polling, Trump made his highly anticipated appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience”, America’s most popular podcast. Rogan has audience across a diverse spectrum happy to give hours for his guests. They talked about a range of subjects – man of the moment Elon Musk, his first term as president, tariffs, energy, media bias, North Korea, border security and immigration policy, US-China relations and conspiracies. The 3-hour interview that amassed 1.5 million views per hour in the first day of uploading, gave Trump enough time and space to communicate with voters one last time before polling.
Two months into the race, Vice President Kamala Harris took a page from Trump’s podcast playbook albeit not the ‘bro vote’ page. Harris also wanted podcast appearances to humanize her and appeal to women and young voters that she was required to mobilize, in a comparatively short campaign. On Call Her Daddy, a podcast focused on women’s issues, Harris leaned mostly into her stance on abortion and emphasized her commitment to reproductive rights. The podcast is the most-listened-to podcast by women. She laid out her economic plan to the hosts of All the Smoke, addressing the country’s housing affordability crisis and need for funding small businesses.
Talking on The Breakfast Club radio show, Harris went after Trump’s inaction towards racial gaps and biases, while focusing heavily on her plans to deliver for black men through healthcare and education. Unlike Trump, she limited her podcasts while also continuing the tradition of campaign interviews with the Big Three. According to Jeff Gulati, a political science professor at Bentley University, the Harris campaign is focusing on people that they think are already engaged, in a bid to get them more engaged. He went on to emphasise that Harris’ strategy is less risky than Trump’s. And in 2024 US polls, less risk meant less outcome for Harris.
Trump’s outlandish streak of podcasts with diverse influencers and demographics now seem to be positive weights that balanced narratives drawn from unfavourable opinion polls and poor debate performance. A master of the media evolved yet again in 2024, this time leveraging his youthful resilience for the Oval Office.
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