Among the legacy news outlets that have come up empty in their efforts to interview Kamala Harris and Donald Trump during the general election campaign: NPR, The New York Times, PBS and The Washington Post.
Yet Harris chose to meet with Alex Cooper for her “Call Her Daddy” podcast and talk a little Bay Area basketball with the fellows on “All the Smoke.” Trump rejected “60 Minutes,” but has hung out with the bros on the “Bussin’ With the Boys” and “Flagrant.”
During this truncated campaign, some of the traditional giants of journalism are being pushed aside. The growing popularity of podcasts and their ability to help candidates in a tight race target a specific sliver of the electorate is a big reason why.
There are certainly exceptions. Harris spoke to NBC News’ Hallie Jackson on Tuesday and held a CNN town hall on Wednesday. But political columnist John Heilemann of Puck noticed what he called “an ancient, dying beast railing against the diminishment of its status and stature in the new world.”
“The campaigns have their structures and their media plans are very carefully thought through, even if we don’t agree with them,” said Sara Just, senior executive producer of the PBS “NewsHour.” “Obviously, we hope they will do long, probing interviews with PBS.”
Journalists consider that an important service. Said Eric Marrapodi, vice president for news programming at NPR: “I think Americans deserve to hear the candidates have their ideas challenged.”
Big-media interviews used to be a staple for candidates
That sounds like a campaign staff’s worst nightmare, infinite opportunities for their candidates to trip up and have an unplanned story dominate the news cycle. And to what end? Most legacy news organizations don’t have the reach they used to, and their audience skews old.
For half a century, a “60 Minutes” interview near the election was considered a key stop for presidential candidates. But Trump shunned broadcast television’s most influential news show this year, and has criticized the way its interview with Harris was edited.
The former president has stuck largely to what he perceives as friendly venues with direct access to his base audience, and continually feeds interviews to Fox News Channel despite grumbling he doesn’t find the network loyal enough. Indeed, Fox has also proven important to the Democratic ticket, which believes that appearing on its shows demonstrates willingness to deal with a hostile environment.
Harris’ interview with Bret Baier was so contentious that it became fodder for a “Saturday Night Live” parody. After her running mate, Tim Walz, was interviewed by Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” earlier this month, the campaign sought and received a return engagement the next week.
“I was a little surprised,” Bream admitted to Walz. “What’s that about?”
Many news outlets don’t reach as many people as they used to
In general, television networks don’t have the audience they once did. CNN, for example, reached 1.24 million viewers per evening during the third quarter of 2016, when Trump first ran, and 924,000 this year, according to the Nielsen company. Broadcast networks are so named for their ability to reach a broad audience; sometimes candidates need that, often they don’t.
The picture is more dire at newspapers, which collectively boasted 37.8 million in Sunday circulation in 2016 and dropped to 20.9 million by 2022, the Pew Research Center said. Candidates once submitted to tough interviews with newspaper editorial boards in the hope of winning an endorsement; now many newspapers don’t even bother making that choice.
For years, candidates have been able to target advertising messages with great specificity — a swing state, even competitive cities, for example. The media now offers more opportunities to micro-message in the same way. Eager to shore up support among Black men, Harris appeared on Charlamagne Tha God’s influential radio program — CNN and MSNBC even simulcast it — and was interviewed by MSNBC’s Al Sharpton.
“The View” and Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” where Harris has appeared, enabled her to talk to people less inclined to follow the news.
Podcasts allow for more precise audience targeting
Few outlets offer the opportunity to zero in on an audience better than podcasts, which have essentially doubled in listenership since 2016.
The format is narrowcasting at its finest, said Andy Bowers, co-founder of the on-demand audio company Spooler Media. People who listen to podcasts often feel an intense loyalty to their favorites, almost like they’re part of a club of people with similar traits and interests — and a candidate has been invited into that club for a day.
“You’re talking to a specific audience with a specific bent and frame of mind,” said Tom Bettag, a University of Maryland journalism professor. “That’s very helpful to somebody who is trying to avoid saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”
For her interview with Alex Cooper on “Call Her Daddy,” Harris appeared on the most popular podcast for women. They discussed abortion, and one of Cooper’s questions sounded like a grooved pitch: “What do you think of Trump saying he will be a protector of women?”
On the “Flagrant” podcast, hosts asked questions about Trump’s children and how he felt during his assassination attempt. Host Akaash Singh interrupted Trump at one point to compliment him on how he raised his children.
“I think I like this interview,” Trump said. His appearance on the podcast, one of several efforts he has made to reach young men, has been seen by nearly 5.5 million people on YouTube alone.
Issues come up during these discussions, often mixed with the personal. On “All the Smoke,” the hosts began by asking Harris about the blind date where she met her husband.
Don’t write off legacy outlets yet
Certainly not everyone is writing an obituary for traditional journalists and their coverage of campaigns. “I don’t view it as a big break that takes away from legacy media,” said Rick Klein, ABC’s Washington bureau chief. ABC’s opportunity to question the candidates came in the most public of forums, when the network hosted the only debate between Harris and Trump.
Of the 10 sources of campaign news with the most views on TikTok over the past 60 days, six were legacy news outlets, according to Zelf, a social video analytics company. They were ABC News, CNN, NBC News, MSNBC, Univision and the Daily Mail.
For a strong news organization, there’s also a lot more that goes into covering a presidential campaign than sit-down interviews with candidates.
“I don’t think journalists should worry too much about access journalism,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of the Hofstra University School of Communication and a former NBC News producer. “We should do journalism.”
David Halbfinger, political editor of The New York Times, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions based on a campaign that was unusually short due to Harris’ late entrance into the race. The Times has followed the campaign aggressively with trend stories, investigations and spot news coverage.
“It’s hard to know what the lessons will be,” Halbfinger said. “For a long time, candidates have tried to go around the news media. One way or another, the mainstream media does its job so I don’t know how effective that strategy is. But it will be an interesting case study someday to see.”
