The Wild West of News Media

 



DISCLAIMER: If you’re anything like me (attentive to the things I’m attentive to), you’re behind the curve in this whole podcasting phenomenon. I’d seen short clips of podcasts at ‘X’-Twitter, heard about the land office business Tucker Carlson was doing right after he left Fox, and didn’t pay that much attention to people like Joe Rogan until Barron Trump suddenly got credit for stealing the media narrative from the alphabet media (ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NYT, WAPO) during the election campaign. Honestly, I’d regarded solo “pundits” filming themselves being smarter than everyone else as an opportunity for satire rather than serious analysis. Why this disclaimer. I have put my own oar in the podcasting water. Several times. Trying to figure out how normal people could produce a regular series of programs on their own hook. So I took a crack at it on the down low. I wake up early, long before dawn, so I experimented with filming myself on the iPad. Without a printer I couldn’t even build posters to use as backdrops. So I used the darkness and video SW editing inserts instead. Here was my first effort:


I broke the 2-minute barrier at least, but boy was I tired.

I was already looking into re-use tricks because long vids eat disk like Popeye eats spinach. My disguise filter cost me a joke right away. The Pence for President book I was writing, which he derailed before I finished it by dropping out of the race, had a picture of Zuckerberg, not the young Pence. Oh well. I guess I really was auditioning myself for a real podcast of some sort. YouTube tells me I’ve had more than 800K views of the vids at my Johnny Dodge Channel, so maybe it’s worth a whirl, but I had to flunk myself for the podcast business after this maiden effort.

Later in I was tempted out of podcast retirement when the increasingly desperate-for-a-crisis Biden administration tried to jump-start a new wave of COVID panic during the campaign. So I wasted one very dark morning filming this COVID advice vid in my best podcast style. Don’t think Imdid anything with it at all. When the explanations last longer than the video, you’ve kind of failed:


It seemed like a cute idea at the time.

Which leads me to a third and final attempt that I began some months ago, still chasing the idea of re-usable footage, and then tabled for obvious reasons. Thought of it this morning, in the dark, when I decided to post here about podcasting. Thought this might be an amusing way to introduce my credentials for talking about this topic in a self-deprecating way. I am not criticizing the people who do these podcasts because they do them. I know it’s hard work, resource-intensive for private citizens, and most importantly, challenging to come across as authentic and worth listening to. My intro to this topic:


This is called flunking the ‘authentic’ requirement. I don’t look like I’m thinking. I look 
like I’m watching myself trying to look like I’m thinking. Which I wasn’t especially.

*********

Down to brass tacks then. This is Google’s list of the most popular podcasts in the nation. I haven’t heard of most of them either:

You click on this to blow it up for a closer look. And here’s a link that should work.

If we want to be really up to date about this, we need to make the acquaintance of Spotify’s ranking system. Here are the Top 5 podcasts as of right now:

Here’s the link to Spotify. You can click each name on the list for 
more about them, including Previews of their podcast materials. 

Surprised? I’ve only heard of two of these, Rogan and Candace Owens. I am well aware of the Meidas Touch organization however. I didn’t join Twitter until after Musk bought it, and it so happens that the Meidas Touch blog was the first Tweet I ever made commenting on what was being said. It was disgusting. A string of blatant lies about Trump so malicious that I had to inform the writer thwt he was the stupidest Internet commentator I had ever come across. 

I’m focusing on Spotify’s No. 1 to make a point. If you click on their name, you’re directed to their story about themselves, which goes like this:

To read more about them and play their Preview, go here and click on their name.

Problem is, after my Twitter brush with one of  their principals, I kept track of their name in the news. I wasn’t the only who regarded rhem with alarm:



These are bad, corrupt, perverted guys all around. Note that we still don’t have the Epstein files. These villains have enough money and clout and evil intent to keep getting away with murder and fighting for mindshare among the gullible members of the herd. Podcasting is not necessarily a sport dominated by Donald and Barron Trump. 

You may have been wondering, for example, where Tucker and Megyn Kelly are on the list since they’re not in the Top 5. They’re not even in the Top 10. 


Tucker in 15th, behind the NPR podcast? No, he’s not the king of all he surveys. Megyn Kelly doesn’t even beat out ‘Crime Junkie.’ 

Oddly enough, all this stuff matters. I frankly disregarded Rogan because he loves his F-Bombs and has the tough guy credentials of a professional wrestler. He’s not a real bruiser; he just plays one on teevee, emceeing shows like Fear Factor and the UPC fights in the Octagon. But he’s important because his emotional appeal and candor about his own personal flaws make him come across as authentic. Is it a coincidence that the resuscitated career of Megyn Kelly involves her own new infatuation with F-bombs, the B-Word, and all of us breathlessly waiting for her to go nuclear and drop the C-Bomb on some woke bimbo? That’s a big part of her appeal, believe me. She always wears a lot of becoming red dresses and whatnot too. No wonder Stephen A. is podcasting against her with F-Bombs now. The new world we live in…

We can look more closely at some of the lesser known son the Spotify list later on. For now, I’m leaving you with a way to find out more about the podcast universe. Each of the names on the Spotify list leads to more about the podcasters involved and their product offerings. They matter, individually and in aggregate. They represent one of the best ways to see where the public consciousness (its Overton Window, so to speak) is moving these days. Please take some time to check them out on your own. At a minus, this will ensure that you understand the contemporary media environment better than the alphabet news dinosaurs. That’s definitely a worthwhile objective.

Thought it would be best to leave by giving you two examples of what a first rate podcast looks like when it’s handled by professionals in front of and behind the camera. No, these two aren’t technically podcasters. But the opening minutes of their shows on Fox are what this emerging medium is really all about.

Greg Gutfeld:


Jesse Watters:




Always good to end with a laugh…

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