How Social Media is changing Journalism

Over the past decade, social media has become one of the most popular platforms for finding news. In the “old days”, people would go find this kind of information in newspapers or magazines, but no longer are these sources convenient or hip. From trying to keep up with the Kardashians to trying to keep up with President Trump, social media is this place to go.

People used to find out about news such as politics, deaths, babies being born, etc. all through newspaper and magazines. Now we can discover this news instantly and from multiple sources through social media. Sometimes this information can come from news sources, like E! News above, and sometimes this information can come from a normal, non-verified person.

Not only has social media become a quick source to find information from various news sources, but it also became an intriguing source to find words of our president, directly from his finger tips. Over the past four years, President Trump has posted to twitter and other social media sources in some non-traditional ways in order to update the public about things he thinks is newsworthy in addition to his own opinions and commentary. Not only does this tactic pump up his party, but it also helps to aggravate and give a good laugh to the democratic party.

So, what’s so wrong with social media taking over journalism? The issue is that almost anyone can call themselves journalists, because social media makes it so easy to post and share information. Although it is great that everyone can have their own voice, this makes it difficult to tell whose information is real and whose isn’t, which leads us to the topic of fake news.

Fake News is false information being presented as news. Although many of us can agree that we don’t like fake news, we often fall for it ourselves. Fake news is dangerous because it is often aimed to hurt a person’s reputation, spread misinformation maliciously to the public and/or create mistrust. Fake news can come from a professional journalist, but is often spread from non-professionals, which is why social media can be a risky source to get your news.

Thankfully, many social media sites have begun to take this situation seriously and try their best to prevent the spread of fake news. I have personally seen Instagram take down a friend’s post because it was causing the spread of fake news. My friend’s post included false accusations about a person that was proven to be wrong by multiple reliable sources including PolitiFact.

There are many trustworthy sources like PolitiFact that help inform the public as to whether information posted about a topic is true or false. These sources are extremely useful when trying to breakdown suspicious news being spread.

Overall, social media is changing journalism due to it becoming a main source of posting and sharing news to the world. There aren’t many ways to fix this situation, but there are ways that we can prevent the destruction of journalism. One way is for companies like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to continue to monitor and weed out fake news being spread on their sites. Other ways are for people like you and me to be mindful and proactive when getting our news. This means reading news from reliable sources, fact-checking news and avoiding spreading false information. A simple way we can all support our journalists is by buying a subscription to a newspaper or magazine. Don’t worry, if you don’t like to wait for your news many of these newspapers and magazines subscriptions have website access too!

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