While celebrating Donald Trump‘s victory early Wednesday morning at the president-elect’s private club, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, posted “You are the media” to the social media site he owns and which he had spent recent months instrumentalizing in the service of the Republican candidate for president. And he’s right.
Musk’s worldview is winning—call it the Muskification of media, where everyone has a voice, but no one knows the truth. Where everyone has access to limitless information, but much of it is junk. Where preposterous rumors and bombastic assertions are rewarded, but measured reportage is devalued. It’s Musk’s world, and the media are living in it.
There is little doubt that the news media are among the biggest losers of this week’s election. This isn’t even a hot take. The morning after the election, the conservative Federalist’s top headline was ‘2024’s Biggest Loser Is the Corporate Media Industrial Complex.” The Columbia …