by Catherine Mortenson
Conservative news and social media sites appear to be the big winners from last week’s election. Viewers ditched Fox News causing a massive ratings plummet after the election. It is now No. 3 in ratings and is being bested by MSNBC and CNN in news coverage. Fox was the top-rated cable news channel on election night, easily leading in ratings, beating both CNN and MSNBC.
Fox’s Election Day coverage had 14.1 million viewers during prime time on Nov. 3, far ahead of CNN with 9.4 million viewers and MSNBC, which had 7.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
Fox News placed third on Saturday with 1.73 million viewers, CNN came in the top spot with 4.2 million viewers, and MSNBC came in second place with 3 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.
Longtime Fox News viewer Alice Martines of Albuquerque, New Mexico says she’s done with Fox.
“The way they handled the election, and the whole year, really, it just makes me really mad,” Martines said. “They kept putting out poll numbers that we all knew were lies. It was a deliberate attempt to suppress the vote and suppress donations for Trump.”
Martines is joining millions of other Americans in switching to conservative news sources such as One America News and Newsmax.
Newsmax reports that it is “seeing a terrific surge across its media properties, starting with its cable and satellite news channel.” Streaming viewership over the internet of the channel is also up on devices like Roku, YouTube, and Xumo.
The company also saw over a half million downloads to the free Newsmax TV APP, and this week it hit the top 3 position in rankings for downloads on iPhone.
And traffic to Newsmax.com, the company’s flagship website, also is surging.
“I’d like to ask Wolf Blitzer, ‘Do you think we’re all idiots out here?’ For six months Biden never talked to the press, didn’t hold any rallies with more than a dozen people. He never addressed the American people. Biden mumbled his way through both debates and somehow he won the election? There is no way he won without cheating.”
Trump supporters are also walking away from Facebook and Twitter. Earlier this week the top trending free apps on Google Play were Parler, MeWe, and Newsmax TV. Parler and MeWe are conservative alternatives to Twitter and Facebook respectively. Parler is currently the top trending free app on the Apple App Store, as well. MeWe and Newmax are the 6th and 7th most popular apps on that site respectively.
Recent college graduate Alex Nette of King George, Virginia is cutting ties with Facebook and Twitter.
“The reason I decided to move to Parler is because I want a reliable news sources,” Nette said. “Facebook and Twitter only show what fits their agenda and if it doesn’t, they add a disclaimer of it being ‘suspicious’ which is declared by “independent fact checkers.”
Nette said a lot of her friends and family are moving to Parler because they can post things without being censored or deemed a bigot. “It’s not a place for racism and white supremacy like many on the left are saying.” She notes that those things clearly violate community guidelines.
“It’s a place where the First Amendment is taken seriously,” Nette added. “That’s why I already love it and respect it more than all other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.”
Parler CEO John Matze said in a post on the platform that he expected a “million or so people today… but 2? You guys are crazy.”
Martines said she doesn’t trust what mainstream news outlets are reporting about the election results.
“Regardless of how this comes out, Trump and his people really need to uncover as much of this fraud as they can because we the voters, will not trust the election in four years,” Martines concluded. “If we don’t get our election fixed, they will cheat again in four years and we’ll be a Banana Republic. It will be back to business as usual or even worse in Washington, DC. It’s terrible.”
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If you make a Parler account, be sure to follow @LimitGov.
Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government.
