Kamala’s Mainstream Media Blackout May be The Best Thing for Democracy

Contrary to what mainstream corporate media thinks, VP Kamala Harris doesn’t owe them anything. They need her, not the other way around.

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By: Danielle Moodie

I am sure you have heard the news by now, VP Kamala Harris “refuses” to sit down with reporters. She is apparently “turning up her nose” at mainstream corporate media and not providing the “access” that the Trump campaign is–insert eye roll emoji. You mean to tell me that the very same media that lambasted her current boss, President Biden, over his age, has called her everything but a child of God, and refuses to cover her rallies attended by thousands live, is somehow owed something from the Harris/Walz campaign?! It’s the entitlement and sheer hubris for me! 

For close to a decade now, mainstream corporate media has been foaming at the mouth, while running behind Donald Trump’s circus. He calls a rambling, incoherent press event and they come runnin’.  In 2016, we honestly didn’t know what we were dealing with. Trump at that time was a novelty. He broke all the rules of decorum and decency which had become the pillars of what we could expect from America’s politicians. Instead, Trump ushered in a reality TV circus environment that the cameras and ratings couldn’t get enough of. So much so, I remember hearing in the halls of MSNBC that while Trump was “bad for the country, he was good for business”. Trump didn’t need to spend millions on TV ads because wherever he went the cameras followed. It became a mutually advantageous and lucrative symbiotic relationship. While many, including myself, initially gave the media the benefit of the doubt, we are in a worse place nine years later.

Since their initial infatuation with the orange menace, Trump has stolen classified documents, paid off a porn star with hush money while in the White House, incited an insurrection, and continues to say that the 2020 election was stolen from him when ALL evidence points to the contrary. America didn’t want him despite the playcaking that the media was doing to all but get him re-elected then and now. While we have learned plenty about Donald Trump’s crime ring over the last 9 years, the media has learned absolutely nothing except how to continue generating clicks at the expense of our democracy. Given all of this, why would VP Kamala Harris think they are worth her time? She is currently tied with Donald Trump in the polls and up in others. Her campaign has generated a wave of joy and excitement that we haven’t seen in over a decade–possibly eclipsing the energy Obama was able to conjure in 2008.  

Instead of the VP sitting down with legacy media, she has taken her message of a forward-thinking, joyful America directly to the people. Utilizing her social media channels, curating casual chats with her VP nominee, and turning political rallies into full blown concerts, she has provided us with the very thing the media would steal from her–authenticity. Rather than have her every move scrutinized by the corporate media vultures who NEED her to sell their stories, she is cutting out the unnecessary middle people and going directly to the voter. She is proving day by day that you don’t need the mainstream corporate media to make your case for you anymore–you can do it yourself and there is nothing that is making them more salty than being made irrelevant. Much like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, the mainstream corporate media is now left to repost her clips and sassy press statements and videos rather than have the direct access they so crave. 

It’s brilliant! 

This redirect of communication and access is also a sign of the times. The legacy media gatekeepers have nothing left to protect and guard as social media platforms like YouTube, Tik Tok, and others have blown the doors off of their ivory towers. Contrary to what mainstream corporate media thinks the VP doesn’t owe them anything. They need her and other stars like her NOT the other way around. So, maybe just maybe this will teach them how to take their jobs more seriously or be cast into the dustbin of history. The decision is theirs, but given their latest circus coverage of Trump at Mar-a-Lago, it doesn’t seem possible to teach these old dogs new tricks while they’re too busy jumping through hoops for MAGA. 

Danielle Moodie is the host of the flagship series iHeart Media’s #WokeAF Daily; The Daily Beast’s The New Abnormal that she co-hosts with fellow journalist Andy Levy and #democracyish which she co-hosts weekly with fellow Daily Beast columnist and author Wajahat Ali. She also writes for a myriad of outlets including: The Daily Beast, Zora at Medium, Vogue, Essence and others.