Legacy media outlets like CNN, ABC, and CBS are experiencing another great splintering. A few decades ago, conservatives and independents split from mainstream media. Today, the split comes from the Democrats’ very own radical progressive ranks.

An Associated Press article explains that so-called progressives think the Leftmedia’s reporting is overly tame and that it doesn’t go far enough in their preferred extremism. One woman says she stopped watching the legacy media outlets because they weren’t giving enough air time to the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Again, this is not the first time such a split has happened. However, leftists tend to stick with the mainstream media because it caters to their biases. The fact that the AP feels the need to write about this fissure likely means that it’s hitting the Leftmedia’s pocketbooks pretty hard.

When you are not radical enough for the progressives, they will throw you away, just like they’ve done with the rest of Western society.

One pro of the Internet — whether through newsletters, podcasting, or social media — is that you can curate your news. One con of the Internet is that you can create your very own echo chamber. In other words, diversity of news sources is both a benefit and a detriment.

It’s beneficial for traditional conservatism because it has helped truth-seekers circumvent the legacy media’s anti-white, anti-family, anti-law-and-order agenda. During the pandemic, for example, conservatives heard that COVID-19 likely came from a lab leak in Wuhan, China, much earlier than the legacy media listeners did. The same goes for other stories like Hunter Biden’s laptop, President Joe Biden’s mental decline, and the Summer of Love Rage riots.

It’s detrimental when it comes to the horseshoe associates — the extreme Left and the extreme Right — who exclude all voices except the narcissistic and nihilistic ones. Most, if not all, of their ideas have little credence, yet they are garnering attention that is neither deserved nor warranted.

Here are both a right-wing and a left-wing example.

On the Right, Candace Owens is the most prominent voice that should be disregarded. Her campaign of attacks, divisiveness, and conspiracy theories is a cynical ploy to garner wealth and clicks. For example, Owens slandered — and continues to slander — Erika Kirk, the widow of her supposed “friend,” Charlie Kirk. Many people tune in to this destructive nonsense even when wisdom says we shouldn’t listen to anyone who goes after a widow whose husband was assassinated. Owens’s ill intent became even more obvious following the preliminary trial of Charlie’s killer. Her lies were exposed, yet her listeners remain because many years ago she built a loyal following through the Blexit movement, and also because The Daily Wire gave her a platform — a mistake it has tried to rectify.

On the Left, there are voices like podcaster Hasan Piker, who believes that America deserved the September 11 Islamist attacks; podcaster Jennifer Welch, who thinks that Christians who homeschool their kids are idiots; and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is a radical leftist candidate à la Zohran Mamdani or Graham Platner. El-Sayed says his own podcast has helped circumvent the legacy media: “I think in a lot of ways, where traditional media has been gatekeepers, we’re watching that gatekeeping function fall away.” The unholy matrimony of Communism, Islamism, and Leftism has been amplified as a result.

Frankly, this splintering is the media’s own fault. Dishonest outlets engendered a lack of trust with the people to whom they were supposed to dispense information. Between the COVID pandemic lockdowns and now Anthony Fauci pleading the Fifth, millions of Americans realized that the media is not an unbiased source of information.

Some “journalists” deliberately leave out the facts so they can advance a narrative. Others help politicians lie to the American people. But a media reckoning was also inevitable. Gen Zers in particular are searching for authentic, charismatic personalities. They are hungry for sources they trust, fully aware that the Internet is chock-full of false information and crazy charlatans. So they diversify by looking to social media, listening to podcasts, and occasionally glancing at legacy media, all in search of some semblance of veracity.

The only hope for us moving forward is to teach our children discernment and to pray for wisdom as we navigate this ever-changing news landscape.