Podcasts used to be a marginal force. Now they’ve taken centre stage. But with their baggy informality and authenticity also comes a lack of rigour
last weekend. The conversation was meandering and filled with falsehoods – and that was just from the host. And we get more than enough unfiltered Trump in our feeds at the moment without suffering three hours more.
That dwarfs the numbers achieved by most network and cable TV shows in the United States. Rogan also reaches a demographic that has mostly given up on – or never watched – old-fashioned linear TV. And, crucially for the Trump campaign, that audience is mostly composed of the sort of younger male voters on whom it is relying to deliver victory next week.
Despite their protestations, it probably suited both sides that the interview didn’t happen. It follows a pattern of Trump appearing on a number of “bro” podcasts with presenters such asThe gender war that may well end up deciding this election is being played out for all to see in these choices. But it’s not just the stark market segmentation that represents a change from the old media regime. Marshall McLuhan’s 60-year-old adage that “the medium is the message” seems more apposite than ever.
But it’s not all good. As the choices made by Trump and Harris indicate, podcasts also tend to intensify filter bubbles. Too many of them consist of people agreeing with each other about everything for the benefit of listeners who like to have their existing worldview confirmed. Billy Nighy: ‘My grandmother kind of raised me. She was a proper Irish woman, a Catholic. I was to be a priest’
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