n. Media, such as tabloid-style newspapers and television shows, preferred by populist politicians over traditional political forums such as op-ed pages and political talk shows.
2004
After they gave me the order not to speak, there was a point where my wife started doing interviews, and she gave an interview to The Washington Post and a few other—I think Salon.com and some others. And I got a heated e-mail from a lieutenant colonel at the Pentagon asking me to stop my back-channel media campaign with my wife, so basically to silence her.
1998
Jim Warren, 20-something, is the mayor's media spokesman. He is blamed if the mayor's photograph appears below the fold of a given newspaper page. He is a Liberal: having moved through the offices of former Ontario Liberal leader Lyn McLeod, Liberal MPP Dominic Agostino and MPP and former candidate for the Liberal leadership Gerard Kennedy where he was responsible for what is known as "back-channel media" — meaning he leaked material.
1992 (earliest)
All of the rules are being broken. An outsider with no identifiable constituency, using "back channel" media, has arisen with stunning quickness.