Monday's Morning Joe devoted a segment to an Axios article, 'Shards of glass: Inside media's 12 splintering realities.' The notion was that, depending on demographics, people get their information from very different media sources and are often unaware of the information that others were receiving.
One of Axios' 12 categories is "Right-wing grandpas," a reference to people who get their news largely from Fox News. What was not revealed was that the average age of Fox News viewers is 68, whereas the average age of MSNBC viewers is 71!
Mika Brzezinski told a condescending story of hearing about some of those "right-wing grandpas" who were convinced that "hurricanes are brought here by our enemies." Of course, they didn't provide evidence of Fox News making that claim.
Mika, how about the left-wing grandpas—the kind who watch your show—the people you labored to convince that if Trump-the-Hitler won, it would signal the end of American democracy and be our country's last election?
Joe Scarborough wanted to know into which category Axios and Morning Joe fall. Jim VandeHei of Axios told him that Morning Joe and Axios viewers/readers are in the category of people "who want to be informed about the news on a day-to-day basis;" AKA "elite power-consumers."
News? LOL! As if Morning Joe isn't pure, sharp-as-a-tack-Biden, propaganda?
VandeHei didn't call it "the good old days," but there was a certain wistfulness as he said:
"It used to be that all of us kind of looked through the same window. Go back 15 or 20 years ago. A couple of newscasts, a couple of cable stations, newspapers, all the same standards."
VandeHei should have said, the same "liberal" standards. Because in those supposedly halcyon days, the windows that "all of us" looked through consisted of the New York Times, Washington Post, the broadcast networks' newscasts, CNN, etc.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
12/9/24
6:41 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: So Jim and Mike, you are out with the recent piece for Axios looking at the growing divide in how Americans consume their news. It's entitled, "Shards of glass. Inside media's 12 splintering realities." In which you label and explain the dozen different ecosystems that, you say, modern media consumers inhabit. Starting with the Musk-eteers. Jim, take it from here.
JIM VANDEHEI: Yeah, I think, listen, it goes back to the beginning of this conversation of, is there a big segment of the country that thinks it's okay to pardon the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th? The truth is, there are. And a lot of that has to do with information.
I think the most useful thing for your viewers is, stop thinking about news, and start thinking about information. That's how people's minds get molded It's what are they consuming? A little bit of news, a little bit news-adjacent. Some of it's just nonsense. But that is, like, the information bubble.
And it used to be that all of us kind of looked through the same window. Go back 15 or 20 years ago. A couple of newscasts, a couple of cable stations, newspapers, all the same standards.
That's now been shattered. And so, tell me how much you make or where you work or what you do. And I'll tell you where you get your information from. And that information bubble that you live in could be completely different from the person sitting next to you. And that's what's new.
. . .
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So Mike Allen, let's get you to weigh in on a couple of these other bubbles. You pick, you pick in terms of ones you feel most important. Although I'll note, that of these, there's the "Instagrammers," there's the "Right-wing grandpas" who still listen to Fox News. But the kids, the kids, TikTok. Which the very future of that platform, now, in doubt.
MIKE ALLEN: Jonathan, here's a fascinating fact about these fragmented realities, these shards of glass. Because there's very little overlap among them, right? If you told me your ideology, your job, your income, your location, your age. Like, I can put you in one of these shards.
But whereas we used to say, oh, like, there isn't shared reality anymore. Now there aren't even shared topics. Like those Instagrammers, the Right-wing Grandpas that you mentioned. They're talking about different things!
Case in point. Last week, I was asked to go on TV and talk about the pardons. And they said, can you come on and talk about lawfare, okay? That's probably not NBC or MSNBC, right. Like, that is from the right. And so, different topics.
And, here's a real wrinkle. Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, a senior adviser, told Jim and me for a column that we wrote on the shards of glass phenomenon, that when they're looking at Americans, voters, consumers, ages 18 to 35, there can be something that's the lead of Morning Joe, or Axios, and they're not even IIaware of it. Or, it's an 8-second, 9-second clip with a totally different context. So a 90-minute debate becomes, they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats.
MIKA: Right. How interesting.
ALLEN: A remix on, Jonathan, TikTok.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And of course, the universe that Axios and Morning Joe fit neatly in, Jim, is what universe?
VANDEHEI: It's basically, if you think about elites, and I hate that term, but it's people who are looking to get informed about what's happening in the news on a day-to-day basis. Largely to do their job, or because they're deeply involved in government or in civic debates.
MIKA: I was at an appointment the other day, and a woman was talking about her parents. I think they are in the right-wing grandpa category. I'm not sure.
And they are convinced, from what they have been reading, that hurricanes were brought here by our enemies. And convinced, absolutely convinced. And there were a couple of other pieces of information that were dis . . . information. And that is now part of their reality. So it's also that problem.
