The Elitist Media Still Impose a Dominant Partisan Narrative
1st February 2026
Conservatives could look at today’s incredibly fractured media environment and wonder why anyone would need to worry about the elite media, considering their trust numbers are in the basement (except among liberals) and their audiences keep eroding.
But just breathe the media air any day, and what we used to call the “dominant media” still dominates in setting the political agenda—in determining what everyone talks about. There was an old maxim that the media can’t tell you what to think, but they’ll tell you what to think about.
This again came to mind when MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace interviewed Oliver Darcy, whose current business is energetically trying to reinforce the ideological rigor of the leftist press. Wallace told Darcy, “I still think that story selection is the most power we have, what you decide to shine a light on, especially now in the second Trump term.”
Right now, that dominant story is the allegedly heroic resistance in Minneapolis to federal attempts to enforce the immigration laws. The daily narrative is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are murdering innocent protesters in the streets. It’s not just choosing the subject. It’s the tone and tenor of the coverage. When it’s 93% negative against ICE on the evening newscasts, it’s a combination of time and tone intended to transform public opinion.