As was the case last month, I am yet again postponing my plans the end of this incarnation of the Chicago Media Action newsletter. That means that this newsletter will continue for one more planned month at least, now with a planned end of April 2025. For this newsletter, I want to discuss the results of the 2024 U.S. Election, the now-widely-recognized role the media played in the outcome, and twinkles of hope to draw inspriation from in what will almost certainly be some tough times ahead. I understand this deviates from the "Chicago" part of Chicago Media Action, but it has been front of mind and will have impacts in Chicago and beyond.

I admit, the outcome of the 2024 election, as I thought in 2016, was not what I expected. Donald Trump defeated a major-party woman candidate for the second time. Some 14 million fewer voters who voted in 2020 apparently didn't show up in 2024, and the blame is laid at a number of factors: the war in Gaza and U.S. role in same; the demonization of transsexuals; the U.S. economy is doing quite well, historically well in fact, and many voters didn't feel the urgency that they did in 2020 during a pandemic mismanaged by an incompetent boob; too many Americans were hestiant to vote for a woman, never mind a woman of color; a Democratic party still too beholden to neoliberalism. Very likely, it's a combination of all of these factors and many more.

But four years and a whole lot of sanewashing later by both major and rightwing media, the incompetent boob is back in the White House. And a critical role, as is now widely recognized and I mentioned last month, is the role of the media. As I read it, this criticism has largely focused on two main foci. One, righteous and justified castigation of the major news media in enabling Trump, muting or downplaying justified criticism of a rapist and convicted felon. Two, the right-wing media ecosystem which has now extended its reach beyond the radio and cable TV dominance to subsume so much of the internet-enabled media sphere and which has an influence on the mainstream.

This has led to a reckoning and a lot of analysis with regards to the media situation, and a strong desire to try and deal with it, to the extent that it can. To be fair, there is and has been an aligned media ecosystem on the left. And this isn't the first time that the wake of an electoral loss resulted in a media reckoning; recall 2004, the same year that saw both the emergence of the national liberal-talk Air America radio network along with the re-election of "president"-fool George W. Bush.

But in the scale of the effort, the financial and institutional support, and the influence on the overall media environment, it's arguable to say that the right has the left beat by quite a lot. As a small illustration of same, rightwing podcaster Stephen Crowder made a splash by complaining and publicly disclosing that his $50-million-per-year contract to make a twice-a-week podcast was too small. By comparison, I estimate the complete budget of CMA during its decade-long heyday was maybe six thousand dollars. That's six thousand across the whole ten years. Air America Radio had a tough time keeping things going and abruptly ended its run after just six years.

And the present situation could well get worse. Shortly after the election, Comcast announced that it was spinning off its stable of cable television channels into a separate company. That includes MSNBC, which has made a reputation as a liberal bastion on cable, and which may well change its name and come to an end. (In my estimation, companies don't get spun off willy-nilly; it's a death sentence. Recall Blockbuster video, which was spun off by Viacom in 2004 when its profitability came to an end.) Where there needs to be a broadening, deepening, and widespread challenging of the media ecosystem by liberal and left elements, I fear we probably see a truncation in the coming years.

This parallels the decades-long decimation in infrastructure and public trust of existing news infrastructure in the United States with all its flaws. Besides the rightwing echochamber filling that void, the void has been filled with so-called "pink slime" newspapers (Chicago had its own version of same, the Chicago City Wire, which so far fortunately didn't seem to affect the outcome of recent elections.) As many analysts noted, those who consumed a newspaper (a comparative minority, as it happens) voted for Biden/Harris overwhelmingly, 70 to 21.

It sure seems hopeless, and yet people and groups have vowed to rally and fight on. There are, fortunately, many examples to draw from that provide twinkles of hope. Among these examples:

• The apparent re-establishment of a liberal radio network, this time with owned rather than rented stations, this one apparently being organized by George Soros and was fast-tracked by the current FCC.

• The steady growth of nonprofit news media, assuming such media won't be kneecapped by Congress. The Baltimore Banner has emerged as an example in this regard. In Chicago, both the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Sun-Times are now owned by nonprofits, along with the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Invisible Institute.

• The astonishing growth of Bluesky as a social media platform to counter the now-noxious example and pull of Twitter/X.

• The outreach to new channels that are typically considered apolitical or skew to the right. Tim Walz gave interviews on AOC's gaming channel on Twitch and also on The Rich Eisen Show (a daily sports talk show). I think we need more of that, a lot more of that.

• The continuing local radio scene which still maintains a presence in Chicago and nationally. Prominents examples of this include Radio4All (disclosure: I provide technical help with R4A) and the Grassroots Radio Conference. Local examples include Lumpen Radio, CHIRP, WZRD, and WNUR.

On Election Night 2024 when it became apparent that Trump was going to win, Rachael Maddow said: "It would have been nice to win the election. Didn't. Okay. Time to save the country." And on Lumpen Radio, I ended the station's election coverage with the quote I always quote from Bob Harris: "Democracy is more than what you do in a voting booth on a Tuesday in November. It's what you do with your hands and with your heart and with your head every day all year long."

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