Two years ago, I predicted that, freed from Trump’s considerable gravitational pull, conservative media would fragment along sub-ideological lines. Last year, new research proved me wrong, and I posited that anything short of a full-throated rebuke of Trumpism in 2020 would play to the benefit of nationalist conservatives (and the news outlets that appealed to them).
What I failed to predict, and what 2020 (hell year of hell years) has delivered, was a fake split decision. While the 2020 election was by no means close — Biden scored sizeable and unequivocal victories in both the popular vote and Electoral College — Trump has refused to concede, doubling down on increasingly delusional claims of election fraud.
Trump may leave the White House on January 20, but he isn’t going anywhere — much to the chagrin of aspiring 2024 Republican presidential candidates of all ideological stripes.
Trump’s insistence that reality, and his party, bend to his ego-balm fictions has exacerbated two oppositional tendencies within conservative news and commentary.
The first, exemplified by Breitbart, Newsmax, OAN, and Right Side Broadcasting Network, has been a full-fledged embrace of an alternative reality we might call MAGAcal thinking. In this alternative universe, Trump won the election in a landslide. It is unfathomable that he could lose. The election was stolen by the deep state, or communists, or RINOs — you know what? Who cares about the details. Just keep throwing mud at the wall and see what sticks.
These news sites have built their fortunes and relevance off of the Trump presidency and, like Trump himself, they’re clinging to a demonstrably lost cause all the way to the bank. Going forward, these sites will not just continue to seed dangerous disinformation among their die-hard Trumpist audiences — they’ll likely tack on more millenarian messages. Rush Limbaugh’s recent prediction that the U.S. is “trending toward secession” is only a taste of the bellicosity we can expect from these far-right Trump fringe media during the Biden administration.
Another, contradictory, tendency within contemporary conservative news is best illustrated in a recent Tweet by Erick Erickson, former CEO of the conservative blog RedState and founder of The Resurgent: “A clicks and ratings based media is not a truth-based media.”
(Maybe he read Victor Pickard’s latest book?)
While no one had “Woke Erick Erickson” on their 2020 bingo card, his sentiment is consistent with interviews my colleagues Anthony Nadler, Magda Koniezcna, and I conducted with conservative journalists over the past couple of years. Our findings, published as a Tow Center report earlier this year, found that a segment of contemporary conservative news workers hold aspirational values that echo those of mainstream reporters. These conservative reporters and editors lamented the vicissitudes of the click-based news economy and espoused their belief, in measured tones, in fairly representing differing political perspectives and in accurately reporting the facts.
That there are conservative journalists whose values overlap somewhat with those of their “mainstream” counterparts should give us some hope. Fox News called the election for Biden, after all. Sites like the Washington Examiner and Daily Caller have acknowledged that Trump’s false claims lack substance, crafting narratives that harness anger at Trump’s loss without losing all hold of reality. Even if these sites aren’t going so far as to disavow Trump’s false claims, as the National Review and The Bulwark have done, we can draw clear distinctions between their reality-based election commentary and the sort of MAGAcal thinking of the die-hard Trumpist outlets.
While I’d like to predict that these reality-oriented conservative news outlets will win out, it’s worth noting that Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports recently beat out Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum among the lucrative 25–54 age demographic. While Fox’s overall viewership for the evening was still four times higher than Newsmax, the Trump-backed alternative cable network is starting to punch above its weight.
The silver lining: A narrative wedge is forming between reality-based conservative news outlets and the borderline fan fiction that passes for news on the Trumpist sites. This contradiction within conservative news will only heighten in the coming year, yielding confusion and infighting among conservative news audiences.
A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama.
Two years ago, I predicted that, freed from Trump’s considerable gravitational pull, conservative media would fragment along sub-ideological lines. Last year, new research proved me wrong, and I posited that anything short of a full-throated rebuke of Trumpism in 2020 would play to the benefit of nationalist conservatives (and the news outlets that appealed to them).
What I failed to predict, and what 2020 (hell year of hell years) has delivered, was a fake split decision. While the 2020 election was by no means close — Biden scored sizeable and unequivocal victories in both the popular vote and Electoral College — Trump has refused to concede, doubling down on increasingly delusional claims of election fraud.
Trump may leave the White House on January 20, but he isn’t going anywhere — much to the chagrin of aspiring 2024 Republican presidential candidates of all ideological stripes.
Trump’s insistence that reality, and his party, bend to his ego-balm fictions has exacerbated two oppositional tendencies within conservative news and commentary.
The first, exemplified by Breitbart, Newsmax, OAN, and Right Side Broadcasting Network, has been a full-fledged embrace of an alternative reality we might call MAGAcal thinking. In this alternative universe, Trump won the election in a landslide. It is unfathomable that he could lose. The election was stolen by the deep state, or communists, or RINOs — you know what? Who cares about the details. Just keep throwing mud at the wall and see what sticks.
These news sites have built their fortunes and relevance off of the Trump presidency and, like Trump himself, they’re clinging to a demonstrably lost cause all the way to the bank. Going forward, these sites will not just continue to seed dangerous disinformation among their die-hard Trumpist audiences — they’ll likely tack on more millenarian messages. Rush Limbaugh’s recent prediction that the U.S. is “trending toward secession” is only a taste of the bellicosity we can expect from these far-right Trump fringe media during the Biden administration.
Another, contradictory, tendency within contemporary conservative news is best illustrated in a recent Tweet by Erick Erickson, former CEO of the conservative blog RedState and founder of The Resurgent: “A clicks and ratings based media is not a truth-based media.”
(Maybe he read Victor Pickard’s latest book?)
While no one had “Woke Erick Erickson” on their 2020 bingo card, his sentiment is consistent with interviews my colleagues Anthony Nadler, Magda Koniezcna, and I conducted with conservative journalists over the past couple of years. Our findings, published as a Tow Center report earlier this year, found that a segment of contemporary conservative news workers hold aspirational values that echo those of mainstream reporters. These conservative reporters and editors lamented the vicissitudes of the click-based news economy and espoused their belief, in measured tones, in fairly representing differing political perspectives and in accurately reporting the facts.
That there are conservative journalists whose values overlap somewhat with those of their “mainstream” counterparts should give us some hope. Fox News called the election for Biden, after all. Sites like the Washington Examiner and Daily Caller have acknowledged that Trump’s false claims lack substance, crafting narratives that harness anger at Trump’s loss without losing all hold of reality. Even if these sites aren’t going so far as to disavow Trump’s false claims, as the National Review and The Bulwark have done, we can draw clear distinctions between their reality-based election commentary and the sort of MAGAcal thinking of the die-hard Trumpist outlets.
While I’d like to predict that these reality-oriented conservative news outlets will win out, it’s worth noting that Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports recently beat out Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum among the lucrative 25–54 age demographic. While Fox’s overall viewership for the evening was still four times higher than Newsmax, the Trump-backed alternative cable network is starting to punch above its weight.
The silver lining: A narrative wedge is forming between reality-based conservative news outlets and the borderline fan fiction that passes for news on the Trumpist sites. This contradiction within conservative news will only heighten in the coming year, yielding confusion and infighting among conservative news audiences.
A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama.
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability