Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. Stay updated on the latest happenings by signing up to receive our newsletters straight to your inbox.
Last week, The Hollywood Reporter published a picture of 22 young people and posted it on social media with the caption “Hollywood, meet your new A-List.” Hollywood’s reaction was to note that nobody recognized anyone in the photo except maybe YouTubers Rhett and Link. It turned out to be a mistake – the photo was intended to link not to the A-List story but to an article about the 50 top influencers – but for a few hours at least, the entertainment industry was baffled.
It’s understandable. The definition of ‘influencer’ is, to put it mildly, flexible. Same for ‘creator,’ which is the new term for ‘influencer.’ You make TikTok and YouTube videos? You do a podcast? You post pictures of yourself on Instagram? You’re an influencer and creator, I guess.
If you have a large following, you’re definitely an influencer. And if all of this feels a little alien to you, you’re not the target for what the influencers and creators are generating. It’s not for you. Doesn’t mean you can’t watch the videos and enjoy them, but you’re more likely a member of the generations that think “THAT’S what’s popular nowadays? You gotta be kidding. Also, get off my lawn.” Times are changing, and they’re not waiting for you to catch up.
This has also had an impact on the news media. If younger media consumers are spending most of their media time with TikTok and Instagram (and Spotify and Apple Music), they’re not spending that time with radio or TV. Traditional news sources are no longer where young adults get their news.
Take the hurricanes that visited this region in the past couple of weeks. When it looked like my county might get some of the remnants of Milton after it slammed into the other coast of Florida, my inclination was to turn on the TV and watch the coverage from our local West Palm Beach and Miami TV news outlets and some from Tampa as well and check my weather apps and the indispensable Mike’s Weather Page. They all did a fine job, but one thing that was noticeable is how much video came from TikTok and YouTube.
The TV stations couldn’t be everywhere, and conditions were terrible (storm surges along the Gulf Coast, huge tornadoes a few miles north of here). ‘Citizen journalists’ – the news equivalent of influencers and creators – were generating many of the most arresting scenes from the storm, and those videos eventually made their way onto the TV coverage.
Vertical phone video from inside a house as the ocean swamps someone’s living room, the sight, shot from someone’s moving car, of a truly massive twister on the horizon, drone shots of devastated neighborhoods, all coming not from officially anointed reporters but rather from ‘regular people’… that’s how news is evolving. It’s coming from people who aren’t trained reporters, who didn’t work their way up the radio ladder or graduate from Medill or spend any time at all in a real newsroom. Like in the entertainment business, a lot of the future may come from people who take advantage of the now-nonexistent barrier to entry and just start reporting.
Well, someone has to do it. If newsrooms are being slashed to the bone and then some, someone has to pick up the slack or many important stories will go unreported. This brings with it some danger, when creators haven’t learned and don’t know ethical boundaries, but that’s going to have to be worked out on the fly, because it’s already happening, whether it’s hurricane coverage or election reporting.
The public is going to have to figure out which sources are legitimate, and which are not, and which are propaganda. I’m not sure this will end well, but moving forward, you may be getting news coverage from sources of which you’ve never heard and from people you don’t know if you can trust. And don’t even think about what role AI could play in this.
For the time being, if user-generated news coverage makes you uncomfortable, the regular ol’ mainstream media is still around. Maybe TikTok news isn’t for you. You still have traditional options. Just don’t expect them to stay the same.
Perry Michael Simon is a weekly news media columnist for Barrett Media. He previously served as VP and Editor/News-Talk-Sports/Podcast for AllAccess.com. Prior to joining the industry trade publication, Perry spent years in radio working as a Program Director and Operations Manager for KLSX and KLYY in Los Angeles and New Jersey 101.5 in Trenton. He can be found on X (formerly Twitter) @PMSimon.
