This past Friday, former president Donald J. Trump appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Everyone was talking about it. Indeed, the X post announcing that Trump would do the show had been liked almost 300,000 times (and viewed more than 10 million times) in less than 24 hours.
You may not think of him that way, but Rogan is arguably America’s most important, widely followed and influential media figure.
Not one of the country’s primetime cable news show hosts. Not the editor of The New York Times.
Those types have been falling further down that list for years. Taking their places are the often-uninitiated hosts of America’s most popular podcasts.
Don’t believe me? Ask yourself: Why else would Donald Trump have joined comedians Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh on their “Flagrant” podcast earlier this month?
Why did Kamala Harris bother appearing on Alex Cooper’s popular podcast, “Call Her Daddy”? Why on earth would J.D. Vance agree to spend an hour being grilled on The New York Times’ “The Interview,” or two hours chatting with comedian Theo Von on “This Past Weekend”?
Because these shows have large, deeply engaged audiences, giving guests a direct line to a segment of the public that’s grown sharply since the turn of the century.
These shows showcase (or even expose) the true views and personalities of their guests.
In 2002, just 12% of Americans over the age of 12 reported having consumed audio content online in the preceding month, according to Pew Research.
By 2023, that number came in at 75%, with 42% of Americans reporting having consumed a podcast in the prior month. Meanwhile, barely one-third of Americans now report closely following the news.
Earlier this month, Rogan hosted centrist author Michael Shellenberger, who recently ran for California governor. The episode was viewed over 1.1 million times on YouTube alone — that is, not counting views or downloads via platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. That’s significantly more eyes and ears — on just one platform — than will take in the primetime programming of CNN on a given day.
Those old enough to remember when the national narrative was driven by the likes of Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings — respectable, suit-and-tie capital-J journalists — might be wondering why the old order has been upended by often-uncredentialed talking heads with no real institutional backing and closets full of t-shirts.
The answer is simple: Longform podcasts are harder to fake or filibuster your way through. By contrast, the typical cable news segment is just a few minutes long.
Even the panel portions of shows devote scant time to complex topics, leading to shallow exchanges in which very little substance is delivered.
Such exchanges are plagued by time constraints, which participants can take advantage of when pressed.
Vice President Harris’s interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier was illustrative. She was asked when she first noticed that President Biden’s “mental faculties appeared diminished.”
Knowing the interview was nearing its end, she took a pause, slowed her speech, dodged and talked through Baier’s attempts to pin her down. The public never got an answer. It’s harder to run out the clock on a one- or two-hour podcast.
The public now seems to intuitively understand they’ll get a truer sense of a candidate through long-form conversation than a six-minute cable news hit.
This is a lesson J.D. Vance — who’s been repeatedly labeled “weird” by the Harris campaign and its media allies — learned on Theo Von’s podcast. The viewer responses tell the story:
“This guy is a perfect example of how much the media lies to the public. We were told he was weird. This guy is the most genuine normal human being in politics. He seems like just your average everyday dad that wants good for the world.”
“I had preconceived notions about Vance that were put to rest by hearing him for two hours. A testament to the power of actual conversation.”
What we’re witnessing in the growth of podcasts is a manifestation of the public’s frustration with a mainstream media that seeks to manipulate rather than inform — to dictate conclusions (e.g., “Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation,” and “the lab leak theory is crazy”) instead of allowing us to reach them on our own.
With an election looming, Americans are hungry for information they can trust; but they no longer trust mainstream media outlets (not as much as they used to, anyway).
Many may find this difficult to come to terms with; but the blame lies squarely with a legacy media establishment that took America’s trust for granted.
Rafael A. Mangual is the Nick Ohnell fellow and a contributing editor of City Journal at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.