A common denominator among politicians who tend be called right wing populists is that their narratives often contain a high dose of criticism against the “mainstream media” (MSM), often described as biased in favour of leftist perspectives, uncritical of those in power and out of touch with ordinary people. Parallelly, a host of new “alternative media”, often with a focus on criticism of liberal immigartion politics and a harsh tone against MSM, has become an important factor in public discourse in many western countries. But is this sort of criticism really a new phenomenon? Historically, the phrase “mainstream media” has been used mostly by left-wing debaters, such as Noam Chomsky and by media scholars, “alternative media” has long been considered one of the dearest embodiments of the dream about giving ordinary citizens a way of “speaking back to power”. When looking into the rhetoric of anti MSM messages in alternative media today, it is striking how much the discourse resembles a Gramscian analysis of society and the media’s role in it. In this paper, I argue that it is crucial to distinguish between “media distrust” and “media criticism” in order to distinguish between ideological culture struggle or metapolitics on the one hand, and the sincere question if the MSM are really doing a good job in describing relevant problems.