Young people increasingly seem to support a socialist agenda of “free” college, a government takeover of healthcare, and even free money from the government. For the conservative movement, finding ways to reach young voters through media is essential to changing their perspective before it’s too late. Unfortunately, new polling indicates that a majority of young people rely on left-leaning outlets to get their news fix.
According to a new survey from College Pulse, the vast majority of news outlets favored by young people are organizations with a history of left-wing bias in reporting the news. Currently, the most popular news outlets favored among college students are the New York Times, and NPR, with each holding roughly 16% of current undergraduates reporting as their favorite news outlet for a combined total of 32% of all undergraduate survey participants.
Meanwhile, Fox News came in third, with approximately 13% of undergraduates reporting them as their go-to news organization. It was one of only two conservative news outlets to crack the top 10.
Given the current imbalance in the media diet of undergraduates, it is unsurprising to see polls indicating that support for socialism is soaring among young people in America. If the vast majority of journalism reaching young people is coming from outlets that openly favor Democratic policies while regularly portraying conservatives in a negative light, it isn’t exactly shocking that young voters overwhelmingly support Democrats at the ballot box.
Still, conservatives have done an excellent job of retaking journalism by forcefully taking hold of the “new media,” a combination of cable news, Twitter, and conservative-leaning news outlets such as the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Daily Caller. Through their efforts, Republicans have managed to break the spell of liberal bias that dominated the news industry for decades, and the average person now at least has access to coverage of both sides of current events.
But young people have largely been left out of the news equation when it comes to conservative outlets seeking a target audience. While there are plenty of left-leaning outlets such as NowThis that exclusively target young people with a progressive message, there is a severe lack of successful conservative news outlets explicitly targeting millennials and Generation Z. This must change.
In the late 1990s, Roger Ailes saw a desire for independent reporting in cable news, and managed to harness that desire into developing Fox News, the number one cable news television network today. Conservative millennials need their own Roger Ailes today, who can tap into the desire for independent-minded journalism and develop an effective news outlet for a conservative youth audience.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute to the Washington Examiner regularly.
