“I’m starting a podcast.” Those four simple words might just sum up the spirit of the age. To launch a podcast is to enter into the contemporary conversation, to bring one’s experience, perspective, and host of conversation partners to the world through digital, audible means. Some might say we are introducing a new oral culture, where people have switched from reading words, arguments, and such, to listening and watching them unfold on a screen. One thinks of a couple of guys fresh out of college who head off to Austin, Texas to rent a studio and start their upward climb to cultural relevance.

The rise of “new media” isn’t universally appreciated, however. A recent Substack article demonstrates some of the fundamental hopes and fears people have about our new independent media landscape, where anyone can set up a camera in a basement, start a blog or an X account, and advertise thoughts and opinions to the world. Whereas the old media represents places like The New York Times, Washington Post, and other longstanding institutions of news and knowledge, new media is an eclectic, internet-fueled jungle with no gatekeepers, no editorial guidance, and essentially no boundaries. Konstantin Kisin, host of the popular YouTube channel Triggernometry, commented on his Substack on a recent debate between journalist Douglas Murray and comedian Dave Smith that aired on the Joe Rogan Podcast. Rogan’s podcast is the biggest in the world, incidentally, so the exchange was sure to garner millions of views.

Kisin, however, once an unapologetic advocate for new media, critiques it in his article and cites concerns over a crisis of trust and expertise. If legacy media can’t be trusted because of its bias, new media can’t always be trusted because of it often lacks credentialed expertise. The debate between Smith and Murray turned to Darryl Cooper, a controversial internet figure known for his historically faulty views of World War II. Kisin writes,

Indeed, one of the main areas of misunderstanding in the discussion is the role of expertise. “He doesn’t claim to be an expert,” is Smith’s riposte to Murray’s suggestion that Cooper doesn’t know what he is talking about. He uses the same defence when Murray questions Smith’s own willingness to opine on geopolitics. The central critique of Murray here is that he is arguing from authority, which is what mainstream media has done for years to gaslight the public about everything from transgenderism to COVID to war. Smith and his supporters argue that the concept of expertise has been so discredited that he (and anyone else for that matter) is entitled to express any views about any issue they want.

Herein lies the big problem: If so much of new media entails a rejection of authority and expertise, its advocates won’t trust anyone with actual knowledge and authority. Kisin is worried that democratizing platforms will eventually devolve into unreliable prattle, and that new media takes too much of a cue from the entertainment industry. Who will, in such a world, know what’s true?

Emily Jashinsky, host of Undercurrents, released a response to Kisin’s article about the costs and benefits of new media. Jashinsky believes that, despite the bad actors in independent media, it offers a net gain. “Old media is really bad,” says Jashinsky, “and needs some competition from new media.” For Jashinsky, the popularity of independent sites and podcasts should serve as a wake-up call for legacy media. If the old bastions of journalism want to stay relevant, they have to look at themselves in the mirror and repent of their own distortions of the truth.

Both commentators make interesting points, and the debate is sure to rage on. Who should we trust? How can old media outlets regain public trust? And how can independent media sites and personalities hold themselves to classic standards of truth, objectivity, and fair-minded discourse? In short, who in the world knows what they’re talking about?