News Influencers Are a Popular Source of Information, But Not All Give You the Facts
Author:
Date:
12/03/2024
There are some new studies out about “news influencers” and how some of them fail to vet information well. Here’s a mental model and some definitions that may be helpful:
Content creators: Everyone.
Journalists: People who practice journalism, which means: they find new, factual information; through primary sources; that is important to an audience; which may be difficult for that audience to find themselves; all while adhering as best they can to ethical journalism practices (like SPJ’s at spj.org). Ideally they would have an editor, but they can be solo. Journalists publish in any medium (written, audio, video). Reliability and bias can vary.
Influencers: People with large social media/video platform followings.
Some people are Journalists AND influencers!
News influencers: People who have large social media followings and talk about news, politics, current events, and culture.
Some news influencers are journalists, but many are not!
News influencers who are NOT journalists can vary a lot more in reliability and bias than journalists as a whole.
The most important consideration for determining the reliability and bias of a journalist and/or a news influencer is not their audience size, medium, affiliation, or your familiarity with them. It’s whether they are bringing you true, factual information.
We have a lot of news influencers rated for reliability and bias on our Media Bias Chart®. The chart below includes several news influencers whose media have been analyzed by our team for bias and reliability: Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Glenn Greenwald, Heather Cox Richardson, Matt Walsh, Alex Jones, Charlie Kirk, Michael Smerconish, Dan Bongino, Brian Tyler Cohen, Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, Mary Trump, Philip DeFranco, Russell Brand, Thom Hartmann, Jimmy Dore.
Look up more on the Interactive Media Bias Chart® on the website, or download the free Media Bias Chart® app, available for iPhone and Android. Daily search limits apply.
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Vanessa Otero is a former patent attorney in the Denver, Colorado, area with a B.A. in English from UCLA and a J.D. from the University of Denver. She is the original creator of the Media Bias Chart (October 2016), and founded Ad Fontes Media in February of 2018 to fulfill the need revealed by the popularity of the chart — the need for a map to help people navigate the complex media landscape, and for comprehensive content analysis of media sources themselves. Vanessa regularly speaks on the topic of media bias and polarization to a variety of audiences.
