• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 27, 2024

Social media platforms Facebook, TikTok and Snap come to mind when we think of how people are increasingly people are getting their news. But there is another social-media platform that is not always top of mind -- YouTube -- where people go to get news content.

A new report from Pew Research Center says 54% of Americans go on YouTube occasionally to get their news content, while 25% get their news content regularly from YouTube.

Are viewers on these YouTube channels doing so in place of regular modern-style cable TV networks? We don't know for sure.

What we do know is that some channels -- perhaps the more political-focused ones -- are acting like cable TV, to an extent.

They focus on news stories briefly, and then leap into heavy analysis, speculation, and -- here is the social-media part-- regularly include questions and observations from incoming social-media postings.

As you can imagine, many of these YouTube TV political shows are very casual. No teleprompters, commercial breaks, multi-in studio camera angles or added video content.

Fact-checking? Hmmm. There are no producers whispering in the ears of these hosts with corrections or questions to be asked.

Is this what Elon Musk was telling all X followers early in December when he claimed that we are all reporters now? He said recently: “You are the media now.”

Qualification? Experience? We know Musk is dead wrong. We are not all reporters (or even editors or TV producers).

We may be just observers with limited skills in processing and presenting facts -- as well as separating real from “alternative” facts, or from opinion and fiction.

It takes work, time, missteps, and dead ends, along with some successes -- no matter if you are doing a home political TV newscast or one coming from any of the big legacy media companies.

For YouTube-ers -- content creators and viewers: Who is really putting in the "work" for that bit of ad revenue Google will share?

And more importantly: What advertisers are buying in?

Media fact-checking sites, and analysis of TV shows offers some deeper introspection. As always, all this means even more content -- all of which complicated the process.

Aren't you glad the news rabbit hole is getting bigger?