The Trump years splintered the US media. But now a bigger problem has emerged: can the media survive without him?
Just last week, Trump could set the news agenda across the Western world with a tweet, shaping the reporting equally for both right-wing and more fact-based journalism.
Now, he’s on the fringes, the media fragmentation he concealed is falling out into the open as the media shifts in response to the Joe Biden transition.
In the large right-wing Anglo-sphere media — particularly dominant in Australia due to News Corp — fact-based journalism is proving too hard a sell. Faced with a flight of its loyal viewers to more extreme outlets like NewsMax and the One America News Network, Fox News has slipped from the leading cable news supplier, falling behind the centrist CNN and the more progressive MSNBC.
