Folks, sharing some thoughts on the growing irrelevance of Mainstream Media in this time and age of social media. Let’s see how it goes!
At the outset, I will begin with this eight year old tweet of mine 👇
With the maturing of Social Media and Mainstream Media’s inability to counter their (well-justified) image of biased / agenda-based reporting, MSM is rapidly losing credibility with increasing speed since the past many years.
Despite millions of followers on popular social media sites such as Twitter, posts by most mainstream media houses hardly get any engagements, which is a sign of their irrelevance in current social media landscape. (I shall share some examples of that in a while)
Instead, their space has been taken over by individual social media handles or new consortia / news aggregators that have emerged over the past few years. These voices not only command more credibility but also get many orders of magnitude greater engagements on social media.
Thus, I’d say that it is time for us to take a call whether Legacy Media (a more appropriate name for MSM, since traditional media houses are no longer mainstream) is relevant any more as compared to new-age content creators who disseminate news as well as views on social media. Let me start with the drawbacks of Legacy Media.
(Let me qualify this by saying that what I say is purely my personal opinions. Feel free to disagree)
Biggest drawback of Legacy Media is that they are finding it very difficult to adapt to new reality, with advent of Social Media.
Firstly, they are accused of having their own biases, whether to the Left or to the Right, whether pro or anti govt, and also as being more considerate towards the points of view of a particular country even if at the cost of own national interests. Sharing one example here 👇
In fact, a quick search of key words ‘Chindu China’ on Twitter will lead to many such tweets. (Link to this search : https://x.com/search?q=chindu%20china&src=typed_query&f=live)
Secondly, despite millions of followers on their Twitter handles, most of their tweets get barely a handful of engagements (a few tweets do go ‘viral’ once in a while, but these days, they are more an aberration than a rule). Here are a few examples: (Screenshots as on 2300Hr, 25 May).
India Today – 6.3Mn Followers and ZERO engagements on this tweet. Views are also a mere 1845 in number.
Hindustan Times : 8.6Mn Followers. Just 1 RT and 1 Like on this tweet. And only 1970 views.
TOI Sports Tweet (1Mn Followers), retweeted here by Times of India Main Handle (14.8Mn Followers). Yet it has just 1 Retweet (that too from the Parent TOI handle) and 01 Like. Moreover, only 6104 views
The Indian Express (4.2Mn Followers). Two Replies (both spam!), Four Likes and One Bookmark. And only 3495 Views.
^^ Btw, since I have QT’ed the above tweets as part of my twitter thread on this topic, the number of retweets on them has now gone up substantially by a figure of 1!
Thirdly, while legacy print media groups were mostly a product of pre-internet / pre-cable TV era, most legacy electronic media houses of today that came up in the past 2-3 decades were centred, atleast in their initial years, around the personalities of their founders and as such, acquired a distinct bias based on their owners’ political / ideological orientation.
Even the legacy print media houses had their own editorial biases based on political / ideological orientation of their editorial boards. I will not take any specific names here for my own reasons, but I am sure folks will be able to relate to atleast 2 or 3 such legacy media houses.
Mind you, I say it from a purely neutral pov and not to point fingers at any individual media house.
The above three points are sufficient enough to show the limited reach of such legacy media houses on social media. On electronic media, i.e. TV News Channels, they still have some relevance due to ability to ‘break’ news in near-real time. However, even there they are playing catch-up to Social Media.
As far as newspapers are concerned, relevance is even lesser due to the news being printed being obsolete already, thanks to social media and electronic media.
Instead, what is fast emerging is that a large number of individuals have become more credible source of information / news than the legacy media. They offer not only news but also views that are often a result of deep understanding of such topics. Being individuals who are (mostly) sharing news / views without any monetary returns / expectations, they generally stay on a small ‘bouquet’ of topics for most part, leaving out the ‘trivial’ news for legacy / vernacular media to handle.
At the same time, some of them have moved on to establish online portals of their own after getting together.
Such ‘influencers’ share their news / views either via the medium of their twitter handles or via podcasts which is becoming another important medium these days. While many of them have a pan India followership, there are some that are more local to a particular geographical area as well, for example this channel. I’ve been following this since long and have seen it grow rapidly over the past six months.
Twitter as such, has become equally important as a source of news in addition to its traditional role as an important social media platform. Instead of google, most people search twitter for any particular news, be it a breaking news or an update on a long running event!
In the above scenario, such influencers command a dedicated following and are often the first ones that people reach out for. Further, by the very nature of the medium, they far outnumber the handles of legacy media outlets and dominate the news cycle, often even being quoted by legacy media in absence of their own bytes / analyses. Thus, they themselves become source of news for legacy media.
Heck, I myself have experienced this on one occasion!
Going ahead, it is very likely that the continued downfall of legacy media in terms of credibility and absolute viewership / eyeballs captured will result in them growing even more irrelevant over the next five to ten years. Major media houses may still survive, but they will not be able to add much value to the news cycles that keep evolving rapidly.
Their continued relevance as ‘trusted’ sources of information too will keep getting eroded as has been the case since the past so many years. The example of the tweet against The Hindu as quoted in the beginning of this paper may once again be seen in this light. Another example is that of NDTV under the previous ownership wherein it was assumed that NDTV would cover even neutral news with their own ideological bias.
This tweet from the era of NDTV under previous owners too is relevant in the above context!
On the above note, I think it is appropriate to plug in this thread of mine on NDTV here all over again. The engagements on this thread have been phenomenal, to put it very mildly!
In the end, all I will say is that in due course, the legacy media might still survive but more as publications of advertisements interspersed with old, irrelevant news. Over time, however, even that will not be sustainable.
What we have been witnessing right before our eyes over the past few years is the end of the era of newspapers and TV news as we knew it.
Do I feel sad?
I’d say no.
I too grew up feasting on two and at times even three newspapers each day. But that time is now well and truly gone. Going ahead, it is going to be the average person with a smartphone to whom will be attributed the death of Legacy Media.
Does that mean that it will be the end of journalism?
Far from it, I’d say.
Good journalists will still stay relevant as we go ahead. The change that I foresee is that they will become brands by themselves instead of needing to be in the employ of Legacy Media Houses. THAT would be the next ‘coming of age’ moment for MSM, as and when it matures I’d say.
With this, I conclude this chain of thoughts. I just had to put it out ever since I first realized the pathetically low engagements that Legacy Media handles were getting on social media. I will just leave this thread here as I finish!
Cheers!
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