A new era and politics and media has begun and will blossom in 2025.While the last generation of politicians continues to cater to the communication platforms held by the last generation of media, forward thinking politicians have embraced new, independent media outlets. In the USA the establishment media is firmly Democrat. In Canada, the Laurentian media establishment is dedicated to the Liberal party. In both nations, the establishment elites were bypassed by conservative politicians who ignored them and went to alternative media platforms. In both nations, the conservative politicians have solid leads in public support.Shortly before the 2024 presidential election in the United States, Donald Trump sat down for a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan. The interview garnered over 50 million views on YouTube and likely a similar number of downloads on Spotify. To reach a quarter of the American population in a long-form interview format would have been an unimaginable dream for a politician a few years ago. Trump upset the establishment and solidly won the presidency and he did so despite legacy media outlets, not with them. The Rogan interview alone didn’t win Trump the election, but it surely contributed to the win and only a fool would dismiss the power of independent media today.In Canada, Pierre Poilievre appeared on Jordan Peterson’s podcast for a 90-minute interview in the New Year. The interview has gone viral and the establishment is aghast. In what is typically a slow media period, the interview has garnered over 2 million views on YouTube and millions more on X. Poilievre has reached a significant portion of Canadians in a short period at no cost to his party aside from his time. You truly can’t buy advertising as effective as this and the interview galvanizes his path to the prime minister’s chair.The days of soundbite politics are over. Sure, every politician wants to pop out a memorable and quotable one-liner and those efforts will continue. But, citizens deciding who they will vote for, expect more now. They know politicians can speak to them in long-form and they want them to use it. People want to get to know who is vying for the job of governing them and they won’t support politicians who appear to be hiding from new media sources.Not just any politician can take advantage of independent media platforms effectively.Could you imagine Justin Trudeau trying to talk unscripted for three hours? Or even for one and a half?Trudeau needs lines written for him or he descends into witless utterances of word-salad. Viewers would tune him out within ten minutes and the interviewer would be hard pressed not to show pain while trying to get answers from him.Trudeau was the ideal candidate for the media platforms of a decade ago. Social media was still all short form. The quotes written for him could go viral and the photo-sessions of him with his hair cascading behind him in the wind Fabio-style could be released to grace the walls of fangirls in college dorms and behind CBC news desks. Trudeau’s face could appear everywhere, while the words attributed to him were carefully curated. Those days are gone.People want to feel they have gotten to know the politician vying for their support and only long-form interviews with a candid feel can do that.This can backfire of course. If a politician is truly an odious character, they will only put people off further if exposed to them.Trump is an abrasive and arrogant man. After listening to him for hours on the Joe Rogan interview, I still saw him as an abrasive and arrogant man but I found myself a little more endeared to him. Or at least, a little less put off. With that much time to listen to him, he was humanized and felt a little more like somebody who would do more good than harm. Clearly many American voters got the same impression.Poilievre has always been a wonky, pitbull sort of a politician. He has been effective in attack mode in the House of Commons but hadn’t established himself fully as a person with a plan to govern the country. After listening to him on Peterson’s show, nobody can claim he is hiding what his plans are and his confidence in the pursuit of them. He is smart, personable and is going to shake the establishment to the core and for the better when he becomes prime minister. That impression could never have been communicated to citizens any other way than with a long-form interview.Progressive politicians will learn and embrace the world of independent media but they have let themselves fall behind in their evolution as they clung to the sinking ship of legacy media. They will be climbing uphill when the CBC is defunded and legacy media subsidies are cut as they don’t yet know how to reach people without tax funded platforms.North America is heading into a remarkable year with new leadership in both the United States and Canada. The traditional gatekeepers of communication and information are dying and we are all better for it. Bring on the age of independent media.
