"Hasan Piker, streaming outsider political commentary from his home studio, has built an audience that can rival CNN in prime time. Tucker Carlson, fully untethered from Fox News, built a direct-to-audience outragetainment unconstrained by editors, standards departments, or advertisers. On the left, MeidasTouch became a digital juggernaut by mastering the same mechanics of speed, certainty, and emotional reinforcement. In 2025, none of this felt shocking anymore, which was the tell."
"Editors slowed down stories and required reporters to defend their work. Lawyers asked annoying questions that often made coverage less exciting and more accurate. Institutions absorbed liability and accumulated memory, which meant today's reporting had to live with yesterday's mistakes. Journalism mattered not because it was flawless, but because those guardrails made it more reliable over time, and with that reliability came respect, influence, and a sense of gravitas that extended beyond any single story."
In 2025, independent streamers and direct-to-audience hosts amassed audiences comparable to legacy networks while operating without traditional editorial constraints. Media authority increasingly depended on performance, emotional reinforcement, and speed rather than procedural credibility. Institutional friction—editors, legal review, and liability—historically slowed coverage but improved accuracy and built cumulative memory. Those guardrails produced reliability, respect, influence, and gravitas that outlasted single stories. By 2025, the visual impact and distribution of images on smartphones mattered more than the processes used to create them, and accustomed audiences began to accept performance as a primary source of authority.
Read at www.mediaite.com
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