Legacy Media and the Death of Fake News
Updated
In June 1941, the FCC allowed advertising on television. One month later, on July 1, the very first paid television advertisement aired on TV. The ad was for Bulova watches and appeared on New York station WNBT (subsequently WNBC) before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. According to reports, Bulova paid between $4 and $9 for the spot. Fast forward to today, where in 2025, traditional TV advertising spending is forecasted to reach approximately $57.16 billion. And that’s just TV. Spending on digital advertising is projected to reach a whopping $346 billion this year and an astronomical $786 billion by 2026. Today, these billions support not just baseball games, as in 1941, but they entirely control the content that Americans (and most of the world) receive as news. Unquestionably, the advertising industry (and conglomerates like Big Pharma) revolve solely around profits; thus, the bulk of the news they fund is propagandized misinformation and fake news.
Indeed, as advertising has become an increasingly significant part of the media landscape, news outlets have, in turn, become increasingly reliant on revenue from advertising. With that in mind, the influence of advertisers is incredible, preventing commercial news media outlets from reporting the truth. The fear of offending advertisers undoubtedly leads news organizations—and other institutions connected to financial incentives—to prioritize corporate interests over factual reporting. This fact was glaringly apparent during the pandemic. The situation has become so alarming that our nation is quite literally divided between those who see and understand what is happening (and seek and deliver the truth elsewhere) and those who believe the narrative being pushed by advertisers and disseminated on digital platforms 24 hours a day, all while lacking any factual support.
But how specifically has advertising on TV and digital platforms contributed to the massive spread of fake news? First, by taking advantage of economic incentives and structural vulnerabilities. On TV, sensationalized content often attracts higher viewership, thus boosting ad revenue. This then pushes networks to prioritize attention-grabbing stories, oftentimes at the expense of accuracy. Digital platforms amplify this effect because their algorithms are crafted to reward engagement, meaning clicks, shares, and views. In turn, this incentivizes content creators to produce provocative or misleading content that, more often than not, goes viral. We’ve all seen it happen and watched it in real-time.
Moreover, low-cost, high-volume ad models allow suspicious sites to profit from fake news with essentially no oversight. Along with that, targeted advertising enables bad actors to spread specifically tailored misinformation to explicit audiences, manipulating data-driven personalization (meaning they use your personal browsing history to lure you in). Add to that weak content moderation exacerbated by the speed of digital sharing, and in no time, false stories usually outpace any corrections to the fake news, swiftly shaping the thoughts of those caught under its spell. Why? Because social media platforms serve as breeding grounds for the rapid dissemination of misleading content, and the ease and speed with which false information spreads on them is mind-boggling. Watching it happen is truly maddening.
One forum where the influence of advertising (and the financial incentives that result in the proliferation of fake news) is abundantly evident is in politics. Think of the calculated political narrative that denied the Hunter Biden laptop story, which turned out to be true. Or the persistent and false message that Donald Trump is a racist. Or the message running rampant through legacy media before the 2024 presidential election that Trump called for the assassination of Liz Cheney, which, if one were to watch the entire exchange, was a clear distortion of what he actually said.
Following the 2024 election, which resulted in a decisive victory for President Trump despite the legacy media’s coordinated efforts to bring him down, Del Bigtree—who remarked he was honored to be in the room following the final results to witness Mr. Trump’s election acceptance speech—shared his personal opinion on some of the issues that have been prevalent in mainstream media for decades. Bigtree noted that, years ago, the media operated from a principle known as the Fairness Doctrine, which required them to present contrasting views of controversial issues of public importance. While some also criticized the Fairness Doctrine for allegedly infringing upon free speech, the simple sentiment behind it—the straightforward assertion that it is essential to know both sides—is crucial for humans to exist in a world of certainty. In an episode of The Highwire airing November 7, 2024, Bigtree explained:
“The legacy media truly chose a side, and that was Kamala Harris. And on the other side, you saw Robert Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump using social media. The only places that would give them a fair conversation at all [were podcasts like] the Joe Rogan podcast and the Tucker Carlson podcast.
This election and this result prove that legacy media is now dead.”
Indeed, across the board, despite the billions being spent to manipulate the health and politics of humanity and the relentless release of fake videos meant to go viral, the 2024 election has exposed the reality that legacy media is on the verge of extinction. Where the masses used to go to understand politics now fails to drive an outcome, even with billions of dollars behind it, and being tied to the narrative that the First Amendment and free speech are not absolute and that the government should instead be free to censor when and if it feels like it does nothing to help their disgraceful cause. Likewise, Bigtree noted that it is problematic when the very people who are telling you that there is misinformation are also the ones distributing misinformation. He then shared the triumph of being aware of their scheme, remarking:
“Instead, all of those free voices, all of those uncensored voices, all of those unfunded voices that don’t take on Exxon and Big Pharma the way I do—the way that we have to go to the people so we speak for the people—that is what won here.
And it really is a devastating and terrifying moment for all mainstream media, including NBC, ABC, and CBS; they’re terrified. They’ve lost control.”
Yes, folks, the dawn of the new media is here, and even Joe Rogan has taken notice. Speaking with Donald Trump before the 2024 election, Rogan shared his thoughts on how interesting it was that people didn’t love presidential candidate Trump in the same way they loved The Apprentice Trump. According to Rogan, the inherent love would have been a no-brainer if legacy media had not, for example, conflated Trump with Hitler, amongst other attempts to destroy him. “It’s crooked, but they’re also diminishing themselves. They are killing all of their credibility, and it’s opening up the credibility to new media. It’s opening up the credibility to independent media,” Rogan shared with Trump, adding, “Because the Internet is giving people information that they’re not getting from anywhere else. And they get the Russiagate hoax, all these different things that they’ve done that they [have] tried to pin on you, that is a clear distortion of what you actually said.”
The road to restoring truth in journalism will undoubtedly be a bumpy one. Regardless, as pointed out by Bigtree, it must be one where the title of being a journalist is achieved only after thorough due diligence and research on all sides. With that in mind, and taking note of all the steadfast truth-tellers, a foreseeable future exists on the handful of social media platforms and large-scale podcasts that are rooted in liberty and justice, examining all sides, without the rabid influence of advertisers or Big Pharma—both of which, as expected, are ready, willing, and able to spend billions to purchase the narrative. With God willing, we won’t let them.