Wir konsumieren Nachrichten immer öfter von sehr weirden Quellen
Taylor Lorenz, Journalistin und Youtuberin, schreibt:
Two and a half years ago I wrote about how the Depp vs Heard trial offered a window into the future of media, where content creators serve as the personalities breaking news to an increasing number of viewers — and, in turn, define the online narrative around major events. In this new landscape, every big news event becomes an opportunity to amass followers and clout, and the money that inevitably follows.
Biden's resignation showed how we've moved even further into this fractured news environment. Our information system has split into an endless number of micro communities, from group chats to online fandoms, all learning about news and major events through increasingly bizarre digital formats.
When I polled a group of friends, one person heard the news in the comment section of a bird's Instagram account, another learned of it in a Discord gaming lobby. Lots more saw it on meme pages and random X accounts.
It's clear that no central news source has a monopoly on breaking news anymore, and certainly not legacy media. Though many people undoubtedly received a Washington Post or CNN breaking news alert, the number of people becoming informed about the world through disparate networks of online accounts and creators is growing.
We’re already seeing this phenomenon through the proliferation of what Caitlin Dewey recently described as "news hustlers." News hustlers, who operate primarily on X, but also Threads, Instagram, and any app with a native reshare button, are the Pop Crave model of news on steroids. They post urgent information natively across social media along with often unsourced videos and photos. They describe themselves as “researchers,” “analysts,” “curators,” or "creators." (Pop Crave— which btw I’m a huge fan of!— does now add sourcing to their content and produces original reporting).
Nearly every large breaking news event in the past couple years has birthed a new crop of these news hustlers. When COVID began its deadly spread, anonymous accounts launched and amassed hundreds of thousands of followers by posting minute updates. When Russia invaded Ukraine, “war pages” proliferated. More recently, accounts on X posting real time news about the war in Gaza have taken off. After the Trump shooting a week ago, and following Biden's announcement yesterday, many of these news hustlers kicked into overdrive.
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