Axios CEO and co-founder Jim VandeHei ranted against Elon Musk and citizen journalists after he received an honor from the National Press Club on Thursday.
Speaking on behalf of establishment media personalities and outlets, VandeHei said, “Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or 𝕏 today, saying like, ‘We are the media! You are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is bullshit! You’re not the media!”
NEW: Journalist Jim VandeHei has profanity laced meltdown because Elon Musk keeps telling creators on X that they are the media now.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 25, 2024
I didn’t realize how triggering this was to these clowns 😂
“Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today… pic.twitter.com/qQoOhRViz8
The dinosaur media member went on to attack citizen journalists who post information on 𝕏, saying, “You having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter…”
“You don’t proclaim yourself to be a reporter!” he shrieked. “That’s nonsense! Like, being a reporter is hard. Really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every day and say, ‘I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.’ You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work.”
Below is one example of Musk telling internet users they are “the media now.”
VandeHei’s onstage tantrum represented the death throes of the establishment media as its soon-to-be-displaced propagandists cry out for help from the American people who have already ditched them for the more trustworthy crowdsourced news aggregate and outlet 𝕏.
The dinosaur media talking heads are basically begging the public to continue taking their every word as the gospel truth instead of doing their own research and coming to their own conclusions.
Musk responded to the Axios CEO’s remarks on Monday, writing, “Yeah, whatever lmao. You are the media now. And legacy media know it.”