Billions of dollars are at stake, as well as the value and future of a social media platform that's a major influence on public opinion. The Murrow Award Winning "What the Media?!!?" podcast from KMOX and Audacy-St. Louis launches it's latest season with a look at the impact of Elon Musk's bid to buy Twitter.
KMOX's Megan Lynch and Media Literacy expert and author Julie Smith talk with Kurt Wagner who covers social media, Facebook, and Twitter for Bloomberg. "It's hard to imagine you could go through something as public and dramatic as this, and not come out the other side and be changed."
Wagner says he's never seen a deal unfold like this one has on social media. "There was a deal, you may recall, when President Trump tried to force Tik Tok to be sold and that was a pretty wild time and I thought at the time that was the craziest business deal that I'd ever covered, but I think this has surpassed that," explains Wagner, pointing out that even Elon Musk's tweets are being used in a lawsuit against him.
Wagner expects this will change Twitter, regardless of whether or not the social media platform is sold to Musk.
Smith points out, only two out of five Americans are on Twitter. While Wagner says it doesn't have as big a user base as other platforms, he ways it has a major cultural impact, "there are very few services out there that really influcence everything that's happening in the world from news, to politics, to sports, and I think Twitter is one of those.
Lynch and Smith previewed the upcoming season of "What the Media?!!?" with Carol Daniel and Tom Ackerman on Total Information AM.
You can subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts including on the Audacy app