The Legacy Media’s Not Dead Yet

By Becket Adams

Sunday, December 07, 2025

 

Attend any event hosted by a conservative group these days, and chances are you’ll hear something about the death rattle of the legacy media.

 

You’ll probably hear a lot of boasting about the rise of “new media” and a bright new reality where alternative voices are now as influential as Walter Cronkite was in his heyday. Gone are the days of total media gatekeeping, when Democratic scandals rarely, if ever, saw the full light of day, leaving no recourse for the average news consumer. The right and middle have podcasts, YouTube shows, and roughly a billion websites all claiming to be news outlets. It’s morning in America!

 

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news: Reports of legacy media’s demise are greatly exaggerated. It’s not so dead or irrelevant as some would have you believe.

 

As someone who has been in the business for nearly 15 years and has spent the past three-plus years training aspiring journalists in the nation’s capital, I’m here to tell you that conservative and alternative media are not yet living in a golden era of a leveled playing field. The information wars may not be as lopsided as they were back when only a fistful of newspapers and the alphabet networks had a stranglehold on the news. But the major leagues of the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, etc., still have institutional heft, power, and at least some perceived credibility, even if it’s not now what it once was.

 

The legacy league, which skews overwhelmingly left, still has the power to shape consequential narratives, leading to resignations, reforms, new laws, and even wars. Don’t take my word for it. We were given a stark reminder of this last week with reports of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora looting the state’s generous welfare programs — breathtaking, far-reaching scams that appear to have been enabled by government officials.

 

Much of the recent political and cultural discourse around this scandal has focused on a November 29 New York Times report titled, “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch.” Among the most disturbing details revealed in the story is that federal prosecutors believe that members of Minnesota’s Somali community have stolen more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money, and that the government employees who first questioned the mountains of cash flowing into the coffers of Somali scammer groups were scared off after the groups warned none too subtly that it would be racist to audit the numbers.

 

It’s a solid article, and the New York Times deserves credit for pursuing it. But here’s the thing: The Times isn’t the first to report on the fraud epidemic. It’s not even the first news outlet to report this month on the scale of the scandal. On November 19, before the Times story appeared, journalists Chris Rufo and Ryan Thorpe published in City Journal a story titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,”an equally, if not more, alarming report. The subhead reads, “How some of the state’s welfare funds ended up in the hands of a terror group.”

 

Chances are you’ve heard about the City Journal report. Chances are you heard about it only because it caught President Trump’s attention, prompting him to comment publicly on the matter, which then compelled the press to report his remarks in context.

 

But that’s essentially the whole point about legacy media’s reach and influence compared with that of right-of-center media. You probably only know about the Rufo and Thorpe report, if you’re aware of it at all, because the White House promoted it. No greater bullhorn has man conceived. If you removed the New York Times, Trump, and coverage of his comments from the equation while keeping everything else the same, I guarantee we wouldn’t be having the conversation we’re having now about Minnesota.

 

Why? Because right-leaning outlets such as the Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Washington Examiner, and National Review have covered the situation in Minnesota since at least 2022. It’s only now, with the double whammy of Trump forcing the issue and the New York Times “legitimizing” it, that we’re finally having a serious national conversation about whatever the hell is happening in Minnesota.

 

From a media and politics perspective, there are key takeaways that need pointing out and questions that need answering.

 

First, why are we only now hearing from a legacy media outlet about the broader scope of the Minnesota scandal? The state’s governor, the hapless dweeb Tim Walz, was a vice presidential candidate barely more than a year ago. Where were the national opposition teams? Why didn’t we have this conversation during the general election, when scandals of this magnitude typically capture the press’s attention? It’s not as if we didn’t know then that something was seriously wrong in Minnesota. In 2022, the Justice Department charged 47 Somali scammers for their role in looting the state treasury. The media covered it at the time. What we have now, and what was available for investigation then, is a better, more shocking understanding of the sheer brazenness of the fraud, the number of convicted and potential conspirators, and the levels of corruption and incompetence rampant in the state’s government.

 

The final point to consider is that, despite the fragmentation of the old media system, the decline in trust in traditional news media, and the rise of social media and other mass communication platforms, alternative and right-leaning media still face an uphill battle for credibility. You can produce something that’s original, thorough, and exclusive, but without the institutional support of a major media outlet or a boost from a well-known celebrity, it simply won’t receive the same exposure, “legitimacy,” or influence as reports from legacy organizations.

 

Even the Republican Party, which has made hating legacy media a core part of its personality, recognizes this. It understands that traditional media still have institutional authority, credibility, and influence. If you’re a Republican and you want a story to gain traction, and you aim to reach the broadest audience possible with a message you think they’ll believe and trust, you often go to legacy media.

 

Consider, for a moment, the recent example of the bombshell scoop from National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg, who uncovered a series of private texts in which Virginia Attorney General-elect Jay Jones fantasized about killing a GOP lawmaker and also wished death upon his children. Fahlberg got the story, one no one else had. Still, a Republican ad highlighting what Jones texted began with, “The Washington Post confirms . . .” (NR was mentioned later).

 

No hard feelings — the decision made political sense, considering the campaign wanted to persuade a broader, general election audience. There’s a bigger point here, I assure you.

 

When GOP campaigns give first billing to legacy media over right-leaning media, it’s clear who has the clout. Again, look no further than how the Somali land-pirate story has played out. For all the right’s reports, podcasts, and tweets, what actually moved the ball on this issue? It was that darn “fake news” media. (Yes, Trump played a role, but he’s a character in the landscape, not the landscape itself.) Conservative media have been all over the Minnesota story, but I can guarantee that your normie aunt didn’t know anything about it until a mainstream news outlet decided to investigate it further.

 

That’s the power of the so-called dying news media. The New York Times can still gate-keep a story. The Washington Post can still command enough respect and credibility to enjoy top billing in Republican ads.

 

Things are better than they once were, but not that much better that we should be writing obits for the heavy hitters of the news industry. There’s still a lot of work to do, starting with a renewed emphasis on original, investigative journalism. If conservative media want to compete in this space, they need to corner the information market and become obsessed with scoops. They need to make themselves indispensable and impossible to ignore. You don’t do this with punditry. You do it with news stories. You do it by reporting information that no one else has.

 

There will still be an uphill battle for credibility, but a culture of solid investigation, backed by a body of original, unassailable exclusives, will make that battle much easier to win.