If you were unaware, former President Donald Trump was shot at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday evening. You couldn’t avoid the news on radio, TV, digital media, or social media. Except for Facebook. They didn’t want you to know about the situation.
For much of the past few years, experts have said Facebook is getting out of the news game. That couldn’t have been more abundantly clear than this past weekend.
For better or worse, many people go to social media — whether it be X, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook — for their news. Obviously, there are issues with that, but in an “everything’s at your fingertips” world, it’s simple to open up and app and believe you’re informed.
But not on Facebook Saturday. If you’re in the news industry, or work in social for a media entity, you can go ahead and close up shop on posting things to Facebook. Because it’s a gigantic waste of your time.
As the events unfolded, I couldn’t help but be briefed on the latest happenings from Butler, Pennsylvania on the Elon Musk-owned X. Now, the validity of some of those reports — from major brands that should make the mistakes that were made — were dubious. But the updates were instantaneous and fed my need for up-to-the-second information as much as TV networks streaming on YouTube did.
But on Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg’s app would like you to believe everything is sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns in Facebookland.
This isn’t an exaggeration: I saw more posts in my newsfeed about a Southwest Minnesota high school student who made her high school prom dress out of duct tape than I did about what transpired in Butler, PA Saturday evening.
Thousands of news organizations, literally, published links, videos, photos, and text updates about what was happening at the Trump rally. I, and millions of others, never saw them.
It’s now been several days and I’ve yet to see a news story on the notoriously slow-to-deliver-posts Facebook newsfeed. As you might imagine, I follow dozens, maybe even 100, news/talk radio stations and TV networks on the app.
I understand the platform’s insistence that it does not want to be in the news game any longer. After receiving heavy backlash for its role in the elections of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, it’s much easier to just completely punt on that arena than continue to let it affect your stock price.
So, my criticism isn’t necessarily aimed toward the Zuckerberg-founded app. Although, I would think in a situation like Saturday — a former President and current Republican presidential nominee being shot — should warrant some sort of notification at the top of the app or website, but that’s not necessarily for me to decide.
My point of contention is with the news industry. With what I’ve just told you (I’m a heavy news consumer who follows multiple brands), why would you continue to post on the platform? I understand the idea of meeting your listeners where they are. And for news outlets, the aging Facebook demographic is your target audience. But if your message isn’t being delivered, why continue to try to bust the algorithm?
Accept the defeat. Realize that you’re not wanted. Put your efforts elsewhere. Because right now? Posting on Facebook is futile.
Don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of social media experts who say both Facebook and Instagram are purposely keeping political content away from your feeds. The app does not want your content on its platform. The news industry is essentially Forest Gump staring at his classmates on the first day of school as he walks down the aisle of the school bus, while Facebook repeatedly says “seat’s taken,” until you get the message.
Personally, I find the platform to be virtually unusable. I believe the record if 18 consecutive posts put in my feed of either advertisements or posts for pages, groups, or people I do not follow placed in my news feed.
And very rarely, if ever, are they from the dozens of news outlets I follow.
While Facebook isn’t the only culprit of limiting the reach of publishers big and small (looking at you, Google), it’s likely the most accessible one for news organizations to rectify. Facebook should be treated like MySpace, Google+, Threads, Vine, or YikYak: dead. It is a dead platform for the news industry. And until it changes its ways, I don’t see any reason to keep chopping away at the Redwood-sized algorithm that you’ll never cut down.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
