Trump’s Win: How a “Polluted Information Environment” Shaped the Election

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, remember Trump also saying “I am your retribution”? Well, he’s also identified certain media as the “enemy” and threatened to throw reporters in jail for coverage he doesn’t like. Trump is also the first convicted felon to win the presidency and enter the White House. How did that happen? Former CNN media reporter, who’s now the founder of Status Media, Oliver Darcy says that the rise of non-traditional outlets is largely responsible, reaching huge, targeted audiences unchecked. And with no guardrails on supporters’ talking and outright lies on occasion. Darcy joins Michel Martin to discuss the consequences.

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MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Oliver Darcy, thanks so much for talking with us.

OLIVER DARCY, FOUNDER, STATUS: It’s a pleasure. I’m glad to be here.

MARTIN: So in your sort of digital news site Status News, you’ve been covering, you know, the landscape of tech and media’s influence on politics, and we’ve certainly seen that this election cycle. In fact, you recently wrote about what you call the “polluted information environment” that shaped this election. What do you mean by that?

DARCY: Well, I think that, if we step back, after an election, people talk about how voters decided to support which other, whichever candidate they ended up casting their ballot for. And I think we need to think about why they, why they felt certain issues, you know aligned more with a candidate that they chose. And that comes down to the information they’re consuming, that cons, that really helps shape, I think a lot of these issues and the way they perceive them. And so if you look at the information environment that people are living in every single day, it’s very polluted. It’s no longer, it’s no longer commit dominated by news organizations that have high standards, that fact check, that really aim to get things right. You have a lot of talkers out there, podcasters, people who are intentionally dishonest, partisan, and this really seeps into the public consciousness in a way, and I think influences how people vote. And so when I say polluted information environment, I mean that a lot of the things that people are hearing are either not true or they’re heavily distorted because people that are pushing them have an agenda.

MARTIN: So, you know, you wrote that “instead of being served up authoritative content from trusted sources, a younger generation of voters who absorb news through osmosis on social media were algorithmically fed a diet of Joe Rogan and Theo Vonn clips.” We all saw this. I mean, we all saw the fact that the major candidates, you know, Trump and Harris really leaned into these sort of so-called non-traditional news sources. That what I was wanted to ask is like, what was the chicken and what was the egg here? Did they do that because the so-called legacy media sources weren’t effective for them? Or did they do that because these distributors of content had so sort of lowered the guardrails that they had to just kind of swim in whatever pond was there?

DARCY: Yeah, I think both. I think one, obviously they were trying to go where the audience was, and the audience is certainly moved over to a lot of these digital platforms, you know. Joe Rogan’s podcast with Donald Trump, I’m not sure what the view count is, but I think it’s over 50 million views on just YouTube. So if you want to reach a lot of people, going on these platforms is often a more effective way to get your message out than going on a more traditional platform like cable news or even just the nightly news. You know, these other platforms have huge reach. And then, as you said, they also have lower standards. And so you’re not going to get the same aggressive line of questioning from someone like Joe Rogan if you’re Donald Trump that you are, maybe if you go on, you know, a Jake Tapper show or on with George Stephanopoulos, who those people are going to question you and they’re going to hold you to account. These podcasts are a lot more lax. They’re conversations. And so if you are a candidate, you know, you’re looking at the information landscape, you’re thinking, well, why would I subject myself to 60 Minutes when I can just go on Joe Rogan and maybe reach a bigger audience?

MARTIN: Is the legacy media at fault here? Is there something that the legacy media should have been doing that they were not doing? Or is this the power of these alternate information sources, however polluted they may be, just so powerful that that’s what’s gonna happen? That these, you know, candidates are just gonna go there because, you know, it’s just easier for them.

DARCY: Sure. I think the candidates are definitely going to go in the future to these podcasters, to these other sources out there to get their message across. I do think that doesn’t necessarily leave the legacy press off the hook. And I think by and large, if you looked at a lot of the coverage you know, on the nightly news or elsewhere, it was very much focused on the horse race – oyn polls, who’s up, who’s down, on campaign strategy, what’s the Harris campaign strategy? What’s the Trump campaign strategy? And not as much on substance. What does Donald Trump want to do in his second term? What did Donald Trump do in his first term? What, you know, those are the things I think the legacy press really didn’t focus enough on. And also not being aggressive enough. I think in countering a lot of Donald Trump’s lies. You know, we’ve never really seen a politician like him who lies with such ease and at such frequency. And so I think the traditional approach, which news outlets like to take in fact checking a candidate, doesn’t necessarily work with Donald Trump. You have to be very aggressive and take an aggressive stance and posture toward him to make sure that people out there who are listening to your newscast understand, you know, what’s truth and what’s fiction. And I think on a number of issues, whether it’s the economy or the border or energy independence, news organizations let these myths about Trump just kind of stay and seep into the public consciousness without really meaningful pushback.

MARTIN: If that is the case, that the legacy media has spent a lot of resources and time talking about the horse race. Why do you think that is?

DARCY: Well, I think it’s probably a couple reasons. One, they’ve always sort of done this, you know, and that the, that these races have been very gamified, if you will. But I think the second thing is it comes across as non-partisan, right? It’s, it, people I think are fearful. A lot of these news organizations are fearful of being labeled as anti-Trump you know, and partisan sources. And when you’re just covering the process and, and the state, the polls, it’s not perceived as being anti-Trump. If you were to say, for instance, if you were to dive into some of these topics, I, I think and say, and say, Donald Trump is lying to you, right? Donald Trump lied about this. He joked about reporters being shot, he did this and this, you know, I think then people are news executives and journalists are worried that they’ll be perceived as partisan. And so this is a nice little way outta that, where you can cover the race still, but you don’t have to necessarily breathe fire on one candidate and come across as being biased in favor of one camp.

MARTIN: What difference do you think it makes that so many of the, either news organizations or I would say content distributors, which the tech companies are owned by a handful of billionaires. We see that X formerly Twitter is owned by, you know, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, or so we’re told, who really has made it into a vehicle for his political objectives and his ideological preoccupations. But that’s not the only one. And I just wonder if you think that that has made a difference?

DARCY: I think it’s alarming that most of the public conversation is controlled by a very small handful of people, all of whom have interest, you know, outside being a place for a, you know, a good robust public conversation. I think you saw that with Meta owned by Mark Zuckerberg, obviously this past election cycle where they downgraded political content made it more difficult for you people to follow news on the platform, whether it’s Threads or Instagram. Obviously there’s some issues with YouTube. You know, they monetize a lot of election misinformation, which is, which is incredible to me after the 2020 insurrection. And so yeah, there is a problem I think with standards on these tech platforms and the way they govern. And I think too, you’re seeing all of them basically kiss the ring of Donald Trump now in public because they want you know, they have a lot of business before the government, and they, they don’t want their companies to be at a disadvantage. And so, you know, whether it’s Tim Cook, or whether it’s Sundar Pichai at Google or Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, or Elon Musk at X, you know, they all are to some extent bending the knee in front of Donald Trump, hoping that he –

MARTIN: Well, lemme just stop you, because I think some of them argue, at least Musk has argued and he’s put, you know, tens of million dollars behind this, that he thinks free speech really means free speech, and that you should be able to say whatever you want. And I guess it’ll get sorted out in the marketplace of ideas. And that includes speech that other people find objectionable or even false.

DARCY: I think it’s a very thorny issue. I’m not, I mean, it’s not like there’s an easy answer for these questions around free speech and online. I think there’s some obvious things that platforms can do, which is to make sure that when people seek out information, for instance, on Google search, you know, that authoritative, credible sources are the ones that come up. Not these, you know, conspiratorial, anti-vax websites or whatnot. And I think you’ve seen some tech platforms take this seriously. Obviously Elon Musk is not really one of those guys who believes in this. I also would, would also stress too, that Elon Musk says he’s for free speech, but he’s done a lot of things that would suggest he’s not really too pro free speech when it comes to his critics talking. You know, he’s sued a number of his critics, he’s been more compliant with government take down orders abroad than the previous leadership at Twitter. So there are things that he’s done. His track record necessarily doesn’t line up with his rhetoric. But in terms of like, you know, like these questions about speech on platforms, it’s very challenging. And you’ve never really had algorithms boost I think a lot of these dishonest people either, right? You know, if you were previously to shout outside in New York City, like you weren’t being algorithmically boosted into people’s feeds who weren’t following you. And now that’s the case. And so these platforms, if they’re going to boost people, they should probably have some sort of base standard about who they are promoting to others. It’s a reach issue. The problem is that he’s giving a lot of reach to people who are dishonest.

MARTIN: Well, you, you’ve written a lot about, you’ve read a lot about the business side. And you talk about how changes in the business itself have an impact on politics. The question I have for you is, are the political figures who have to kind of navigate this space, are they attentive to these changes?

DARCY: I mean, I do think that the legacy media hasn’t evolved probably quick enough and recognize the changes in the media landscape. I think you’re seeing some of them do that now. But by and large, you know, I think the legacy media was living off of an old business model, and that business model is now quickly collapsing, and it’s prompting them to seek out other revenue streams and other business models. But before they were happy to basically be at the buffet that was keeping them in business for so long. And you know, I think when you look at YouTubers or podcasters, they generally had to be a lot more scrappy. They fought for their audiences, they’ve really worked to build them. And you know, for so long, people would just turn on the TV and watch World News tonight, right? They would turn on the TV and watch the Today Show. There wasn’t much work that was necessarily being done to earn that audience. Whereas if you look at these podcasters, like they are really scrappy. And so I think that’s, that’s one, one issue. But yeah, like I, I guess like it’s not entirely their fault. People will go to outlets that are soft around them that have huge reach. But partially, like, if you think about it, like outlets that, you know, these legacy outlets, these really big outlets probably could have done a lot more early on to adapt to the changing media environments. And now really at the last, you know, final minute before the clock strikes midnight, they’re desperately trying to get into these fields.

MARTIN: So let’s cast forward here. I mean, you know, the President-elect Trump has made no secret of the fact that he’s no fan of the legacy media. You know, on the one hand, he’s always trashed the media, right? It’s the fake news, you know, we’ve heard it all. And in fact, in this last campaign, his most recent campaign said, you know, he wouldn’t mind if the journalist got shot, which his campaign spokesman said was misinterpreted. But, you know, we all heard, we can decide what we thought about that. You know, on the other hand, he was very available to the mainstream media. I mean, it was just a fact. He was very available. He gave lots of interviews. He talked to people, you know, at length from all these sort of different outlets.

DARCY: Well, I think that Donald Trump’s relationship with the media gets very hot and cold occasionally. I mean, the legacy press or the, you know, credible press, he gets very hot and cold. Occasionally, he’ll do a lot of interviews with ’em, and then he’ll just, you know, go back to Fox News Universe and just kind of stay there. And so at the latter part of the campaign, I think that’s generally what he was doing, right? He, like, canceled 60 minutes, he canceled a CNBC interview, and he was doing these podcasts and hanging out on Fox News every single day. And I think, so I think that I’ll oscillate during his camp – during his presidency. But how he treats the press is, I think, up in the air. You know, I talked to Stephanie Grisham earlier this summer, and she said that she had been tasked with kicking the, you know, a lot of the critical press off of White House grounds. And you saw them try doing that in the first administration, with Jim Acosta and I’m not convinced that he won’t try that again. And I think he’s gonna have people who are willing to just kind of throw out the norms and take a really hard line stance against the news media. So, we’ll see. And of course, like, just like the idea that he could make life difficult for someone like Jeff Bezos if the Washington Post were to be overly critical, I think that’s a big worry as well, because –

MARTIN: Like how? Like what could he do?

DARCY: Well, Blue Origin, his space company has billions of dollars in contracts before the US government. You know, I think, I think if they were maybe awarded to someone like Elon Musk who now is best friends with Donald Trump, that would be a problem for Jeff Bezos, right? Like, that’s not something that’s great. Amazon Web Services also has a lot of government, government business, you know. And so if he were to maybe take that away or start awarding these big contracts to competitors, I think that presents a problem for someone like Bezos. You know, he, his companies are very heavily intertwined with government just as Elon Musk are, right? That’s why Elon Musk is probably a very happy man today. You know, he’s worth more than $50 billion since election day because Wall Street sees that he’s gonna have a very good relationship with the new president and that’s gonna be very beneficial to Tesla and SpaceX, both of which rely on a lot of government contracts. So it’s not really hard to see the math here. And the Washington Post, which Jeff Bezos owns, is a very small business, right? It’s, he, I mean, that’s not a, that’s not a thing that’s making him money. It’s actually losing money. So like, you could see, if you’re Bezos and you’re presented with like, do I lose some subscribers to the Washington Post? Or do I lose billions of dollars in Blue Origin contracts? Like, that’s the calculation he’s basically got to make. And, you know, it can be, you know, you can see why he might not want to endorse Kamala Harris at the last minute.

MARTIN: So the question Oliver, is what do people who don’t think that’s the right way, the government should be organized? It should not be organized by people who can curry favor with whoever is in power through their vast personal wealth, who can control communication systems and bend them to, you know, the point that they want to make. What do people do who don’t agree with that? What should they do?

DARCY: I mean, I don’t, I don’t know. This is, this is the issue that we’re now as a society, I think confronting as people amass like, you know, insane amounts of wealth. Because now, like these people, like even with Elon Musk, like if the government finds him for possibly violating the law with this million dollar giveaway he was doing in Pennsylvania, does it matter to him? Like, it, he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter to him. Like he doesn’t, you can fine him a million bucks. It still doesn’t matter, right? And like, so like, it’s almost like a lot of these people have basically become above the law to some extent, you know, unless they’re, you know, committing a like a violent crime. So I think this is, this is an issue as a society we’re learning to grapple with what happens when people amass this much, this much wealth where they, where they’re basically able to fly high above a lot of the things that have been put into place to make sure that people do obey law and order.

MARTIN: So what are you going to be paying attention to?

DARCY: Well, I mean, I think the Elon Musk/Donald Trump relationship’s obviously going to be extremely key. I also, I’m curious how these billionaires who own these media companies are going to act. You know, is the Washington Post going to be allowed to continue its hard hitting coverage of Donald Trump as it did in the first administration? Or was what Bezos did with the endorsement a sign of what could be to come? And then I think also another key thing to watch will be these news organizations like NBC News or CNN owned by bigger media conglomerates, how do they cover the White House? Because they also have some business potentially before the government, they want to do some mergers and acquisitions. A lot of these companies have talked openly about that. And if one of the outlets, let’s say NBC News or MSNBC is a real thorn in the side to Donald Trump, you know, he might do, you know, he might pull the levers of government and make it a deal that Brian Roberts at Comcast wants to make a little more challenging. You know, you’ve already seen him threaten that. He posted on his Truth Social platform last year that the government should come down hard on Brian Roberts and Comcast, the owners of NBC Universal for the coverage of MSNBC that he was receiving. And so I’m paying attention to that as well. I think there’s a lot of behind the scenes positioning that a lot of business leaders are making that will influence news coverage and ultimately the information ecosystem in which people live.

MARTIN: Oliver Darcy, thank you so much for talking with us.

DARCY: Thank you so much. This is great and fun.