OPINION:
Americans find themselves in the middle of an information war between the corporate media and those who value the truth. That conflict has raged for years just below the surface. But the rise of Donald Trump in American politics and the explosion of podcasts and alternative online news sources have forever altered that information war in favor of the underdogs in the alternative media space.
Gone are the days when Americans would come together for the evening broadcast of Walter Cronkite on CBS News. Even CNN, which was long seen as a left-leaning albeit trustworthy source of information by many Americans, is viewed with suspicion by many and derision by others.
Moreover, the corporate media are unlikely to ever regain Americans’ trust. That’s because the corporate press has gotten so much wrong — and refused to apologize for it.
Be it the initial cheerleading for the Iraq War in 2003 or the drumbeat of “Russia! Russia! Russia!” during the 2016 presidential campaign, Americans have good reason not to trust the mainstream news media.
A Gallup Poll from last October shows that “Americans’ trust in media has fallen to a historic low.” Specifically, Gallup found: “A record-high number of Americans (39 percent) say they don’t trust the media at all.”
Only 29% of Americans who label themselves “independent” trust the corporate media.
Amid this distrust, alternative media have exploded in popularity.
“The Joe Rogan Experience” has become a popular source of information, with a larger audience than CNN, becoming a standard-bearer for podcasts everywhere. The social media platform X has become one of the most trusted sources of information since Elon Musk bought it.
People are thirsty for truth. They understand that many mainstream sources of news have been compromised by special interests and political ideology. So the average person is fighting back by turning to other sources of information — even ones the corporate press denigrates or ignores.
The key for most Americans trusting a news source is authenticity in its reporting and humility from the reporters. Most can glean whether a podcaster or alternative news site shares accurate information.
Podcaster Shawn Ryan has emerged above the others in a crowded field — even toppling Mr. Rogan’s dominant position in the podcast rankings. Mr. Ryan had no experience in news, yet he has created a podcast that has grown in such popularity that it has become the world’s top podcast.
A former Navy SEAL turned CIA contractor, Mr. Ryan left government service and went to work as a weapons instructor in Hollywood. He even briefly trained the excellent Keanu Reeves for the John Wick film franchise.
Afterward, he moved to a rural area and started posting videos online about his passion for guns.
Despite his background, Mr. Ryan told me that he had “really bad social anxiety” when he started making videos. Still, Mr. Ryan amassed a sizable audience with those videos on guns.
Mr. Ryan, who was struggling with his own experiences fighting America’s recent Mideast wars, knew that many other veterans of America’s war on terrorism were battling the kinds of demons he had been fighting.
As part of his healing journey, as well as having grown tired of people in the media who had never served or endured the hardships that he and his community had experienced, Mr. Ryan set out to tell his story — and the stories of America’s veterans — from the perspective of a man who had been there.
From the first episode, which Mr. Ryan described to me as having been a moment in which he felt totally out of his element, “The Shawn Ryan Show” has garnered a massive online following. There is even become what’s known as the “Shawn Ryan effect.” That’s when a guest appears on the show, and almost as soon as it premieres, that guest and whatever business or product they’re promoting becomes popular.
People love the show because they trust Shawn Ryan.
Five years after the podcast premiered, Mr. Ryan has built an empire. But that was not what he set out to do. He intended to inform, first about guns, an area that few can challenge him on, and then about his brothers in arms. After that, Mr. Ryan expanded the scope.
Recent episodes have featured a range of interesting personalities the mainstream media won’t interview. Mr. Ryan has interviewed Christian apologists, spoken with ancient alien theorists and even got an interview with former President Donald Trump.
Along the way, “The Shawn Ryan Show” started doing something that few podcasts have: breaking international news, particularly about the Taliban’s activities in Afghanistan.
Next year, Mr. Ryan plans to open the aperture even more. He wants to talk to health experts because he says most people “have zero perspective” about what’s going on with America’s health situation.
This is all because audiences are desperate for legitimate, reliable, interesting sources of information. “The Shawn Ryan Show” has become the face of the alternative media revolution sweeping the world, putting gatekeepers on their back heels and transforming how information is distributed.
With such honest and likable people in alternative media, the corporate press is unlikely to reclaim the trust it has lost with the majority of Americans.
That is, if our freedom of speech is preserved, people can choose what they want to watch.
The success of Shawn Ryan and others is a victory in the information war for the side that loves freedom. A well-informed citizenry is a better defense of our besieged republic than any standing army ever could be.
• Brandon J. Weichert is a national security analyst at The National Interest. His newest book, “A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine” (Encounter Books), will be released Oct. 22. He can be followed on X @WeTheBrandon.
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