Once again, social media has reminded editors and managers of traditional media that when it comes to broadcasting live events or news around the world in real time, they can’t compete. While traditional media was debating whether the live conversation on X between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Grand Old Party (GOP) candidate Donald Trump was a conversation, a sparring session or an interview, the conversation between two of the most indispensable men in the world surpassed 200 million views, as claimed in a post by Musk. The next morning, Musk tweeted again, saying the conversation had received a billion combined views – a staggering figure for legacy media.
I was keeping a close eye on the coverage of the event by traditional media. It was disappointing to see that most of it was negative; many headlines in both the U.K. and the U.S. painted the two-hour conversation in a negative light. One headline screamed: “Trump’s interview with Musk turns into another X disaster”. The legacy print media published numerous articles on the event. USA Today He said it was an “extremely devastating disaster.” the new York Times It was described as a “two-hour walk”, and Washington Post It was called “softball.” Other traditional media outlets were no different: CNN compared the incident to watching “Grumpy Old Men”, and msnbc Some called it a “failed” interview. Some focused more on the delay caused by technical glitches. Guardian The analysis was titled: “Elon Musk’s X suffers technical failure at start of Donald Trump interview”, while the BBC said, “Musk’s X talks with Trump hit by technical glitches”.
UK riots and social media
Just hours after three young women were brutally stabbed to death in the UK town of Southport on July 29, news and reactions began pouring in on social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. These platforms provided real-time updates about the horrific incident. On the other hand, many felt that the mainstream media gave very little coverage of the incident until widespread violent protests spread across cities and towns in England. The news of the murder of the three girls was initially treated by the old media as a normal crime story, as it turned out that there was no terrorist connection. It was only when fake videos and unconfirmed news began to circulate widely and garner millions of views that the established media woke up from its slumber.
This void was filled by some notorious right-wing individuals on social media, who were accused of posting inflammatory content.
The British government described Elon Musk as one of those who were “stirring the pot”. Reacting to the riots, Musk suggested in a post that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain. Responding to Prime Minister Keith Starmer’s comments on attacks on the Muslim community, he asked, “Shouldn’t you be worried about attacks on all communities?” He also accused the police of being biased against protesters
The billionaire knows what he’s doing
Elon Musk appears to have learned something from the downfall of traditional media, which has been accused of lack of innovation and stagnation; it relies heavily on social media platforms to amplify its content.
Musk has 194.4 million followers on X. He is the most followed person on the platform. X CEO Linda Yaccarini says the platform has 500 million monthly active users. Of course, Musk is aware of this reach and is strategically using it to his advantage to undermine legacy media. His strategy can be gauged from the way he managed to land a two-hour interview with Trump and how he promoted it before that.
This was not an isolated incident. Musk also defended Donald Trump in March when Trump said at a rally in Ohio that the US would be “bashed in blood” if he lost the November election. He made several posts on X in response to the coverage and urged people to use his platform to share news instead of reading or watching news on traditional outlets. He accused Trump of lying about his remarks and said his comments were taken out of context.
Open challenge
Elon Musk, who is described as a genius and innovator apart from being one of the richest people in the world, has openly challenged the 200-year dominance of traditional media over news and current affairs. In one of his posts, he said, “Citizen journalism by real domain experts and people actually on the ground is much faster, more accurate and less biased than legacy media”. The claim of being “more accurate” and “less biased” can be challenged, but not the claim of social media being “much faster” than legacy media.
Social platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook are officially still tech companies, but they have daily news capsules, real-time coverage of events and timeline postings that mainstream media cannot match. They have emerged as a major challenge to the established, legacy media.
Needless to say, many political parties and popular leaders around the world have strong social media strategies. They have also realized the importance of speed and reach and often bypass traditional media to reach their followers and voters in their countries, as they believe that these platforms allow them to connect more closely with their supporters.
Will the law help?
Europe has already passed a law to hold social media accountable. Now it’s the British government’s turn. Its Online Safety Bill aims to regulate social media platforms and protect users from harmful content. The bill calls on companies to remove fake and illegal content and establishes Ofcom (the media regulator) as the regulator, which has the power to fine companies up to £18 million or 10% of annual global turnover for non-compliance. The law is expected to come into force by 2025. Some right-wing anti-establishment organisations have urged the government to implement it as soon as possible.
But will this in any way curb the growing popularity of social media? Will it slow down their pace of news production? Will the argument about lack of trust and threat to democracy prove correct?
What should legacy media do?
I can say from my 30 years of experience in mainstream Western media that they are still slow to innovate, as they were slow to adopt digital transformation and also hesitant to collaborate with social media.
“Digital Transformation” is a buzzword these days. BBC Today they are taking bold steps in their leap towards digitalization at the expense of traditional media such as TV and radio. Also, this may sound strange, but BBC News This is completely new for TikTok. They realized just last year that they lost TikTok’s younger audience, who, as they learned, watch a huge amount of news.
But this is a strategy fraught with risk. A balance between legacy and social media, as well as innovation and speed, may be the key to survival and sustainability.
(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a senior London-based Indian journalist with three decades of experience in Western media)
Disclaimer: These are the personal views of the author
