There’s so much that could be written about here now that’s affecting communications and media. For starters:
-The President of the United States is suing the Wall Street Journal in a case filed for “damages” that somehow were incurred within 24 hours.
-With threats by that President, Congress followed the playbook in Project 2025 and took away two years of previously appropriated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which will adversely affect public TV and radio stations across the country and continue the shaping of media in the U.S. in the way we told you Hungary has done under its version of autocracy.
-That same President affected corporate communications like never before, attempting to break what could be news that Coca-Cola was changing its formula. The public company has scrambled to not confirm it but not really say anything either, clearly under enormous and likely unexpected pressure.
-CBS, owned by Paramount, the same corporation that’s paying a de facto bribe to that President so the FCC will allow it to be sold to its preferred suitor is cancelling its late night show, hosted by a Presidential satirist and critic, blaming finances. Yes, the linear TV business is in a financial disaster and cuts that will shock audiences are happening and coming. But also yes, that company has eroded pubic trust with its Presidential payoff and nothing it says will be trusted.
-And oh ya, there was a tech CEO caught in an affair by a concert “kiss cam” with his company’s head of HR, causing a crisis of viral proportions.
But here’s the question that keeps coming to mind: Who is actually paying attention? To any of this.
A survey announced a couple of weeks ago may shed some light. To analyze this, we have to agree that the definition of “politics” has expanded in recent years. It’s far from the policy sausage making an election coverage we once knew. It’s now almost anything in the national news that is tied to a government policy or decision and that is, pretty much everything. We also have to agree, for the moment, that those surveyed were honest here.
Here’s what the survey reveals: There’s one-third of us who regularly seeks out news. There’s about a third that follows news when it’s brought to their attention, but they don’t seek it out (that’s the “I get my news from social media” people – now is not the time to go on that tangent). And then there’s the third divided by “I pay attention only when necessary” and the 12 percent of those surveyed who say they “tune out altogether.”
This is important to remember if you’re in PR, in news or just trying to figure out any of this. On a really big national story, one with a lot of traction that somehow cuts through the clutter, you’re getting 2/3. If you go to a giant chain store and you figure there’s 100 people in there, a dozen of them have no idea (and aren’t even getting the Weekly World News at the checkout anymore) about anything going on.
Pretty much everything that those of us do this professionally are doing is for a niche audience. We’re communicating to the ones who care. Even then, chances are they are breaking it down through their political lens, no matter the facts. That’s where we are, as the stories continue to mount.
