The Sift: News influencers | Fragmented media

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{{Salutation or 'Educators'}}, here are the latest news literacy topics and tips to integrate them into your classroom.

1. Should news sites have paywalls?

Credible information is vital to countering misinformation, but paywalls on standards-based news websites can prevent readers from accessing it. About 30% to 40% of U.S. news sites use paywalls, according to misinformation expert Claire Wardle, a professor at Cornell University. Wardle said in an interview that paywalls are a barrier to the dissemination of quality journalism at a time when the information landscape has changed — including with the rise of low-quality, freely available, AI-generated “pink slime” sites. The growing popularity of social media platforms and podcasts as sources of information in the past decade, as well as the decline of ad revenue, has also affected news organizations.

CNN and Reuters — for-profit news organizations — are among the news outlets that have recently added paywalls to their sites. While news organizations need funding to operate and many — especially local newsrooms — are struggling to survive financially, Wardle suggested making news about political and social issues free. Some news outlets have hard paywalls that require readers to subscribe to access information, but others have soft paywalls that allow readers to access a certain number of articles for free before they’re asked to pay.

Note:

Wardle has volunteered her time in support of the News Literacy Project, including by serving as the host of the Misinformation lesson on NLP’s Checkology® virtual classroom.

Discuss:

Do you ever encounter news paywalls? Where do you turn for information if you encounter a paywall? How could news paywalls indirectly cause false and misleading information to spread? What might some costs and consequences be for communities that lack credible local news sources? Why do newsrooms need revenue to operate?

Related:

• “The Paywall Gambit” (Columbia Journalism Review).

★ NLP Resources:

2. News media has become more fragmented

The way people tuned into election news this year is growing more fragmented compared with the 2016 election, back when most Americans followed major news networks and publishers. Some online creators are seeing the same viewership numbers as major news outlets — like TikTok news influencer Dylan Page, whose video calling the presidential election results had over 6 million views, about the same as MSNBC’s average live broadcast numbers on Election Day. A new Pew Research Center study found that about 1 in 5 U.S. adults say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media. Americans also turned to podcasts, X, Instagram, Twitch and Facebook for election news.

Discuss:

Think back to election night. How did you get news and updates? How do you determine whether a news source is credible? Should news influencers aspire to the same standards as professional journalists, such as fairness, accuracy and the use of multiple credible sources?

Related:

• “Trump’s Win Cemented It: New Media Is Leaving the Old Guard Behind” (The Wall Street Journal).
• “‘Affirmation Instead of Information’: Katie Couric Talks Role of Media in Election at IOP Forum” (The Harvard Crimson).

★ NLP Resource:

3. Want to be an influencer? There’s a degree for that

Influencers have become a major source of news for young people — and a popular career aspiration among Gen Z. A university in Ireland is responding to this high interest by offering a degree in content creation and social media, with courses on video storytelling, data analytics and celebrity studies.

Many young people view influencers as trusted information sources, especially compared with journalists. About 8 in 10 teens say that news organizations produce information that is either more biased than or about the same as content creators online, according to a recent NLP survey.

Discuss:

What ethical responsibilities do journalists and influencers have when they share information? How are they alike? How are they different? What are some signs of credibility for online sources?

Idea:

Have students use this short-form video script template to create their own script to share information about a current event. Ask students to keep accuracy and the “Seven standards of quality journalism” in mind as they work on their scripts.

• Another idea: Use the “Reflect” slide in Week 9 of the Daily Do Now resource to further explore this topic.

Note:

For more teaching tips and ideas on this topic, check out NLP’s recent edWebinar “Teach With TikTok: Help Students Stick to the Facts on Social Media.”

Related:

• “UTSA offers influencer degree” (Texas Public Radio).
• “AI travel influencers are here. Human travelers hate it.” (The Washington Post). 
• “This ‘Wall Street Girly’ Wants to Make Wealth More Accessible” (The New York Times).
  • Note: NLP Senior Vice President of Research and Design Peter Adams is quoted in this article.

★ NLP Resources:

No, Musk’s Starlink wasn’t used to alter vote tallies

❌ NO: Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites were not used to manipulate or change votes in swing states during the 2024 presidential election.

✅ YES: Georgia, Pennsylvania and other swing states don’t allow voting equipment to be connected to the internet during ballot counting.

✅ YES: Federal officials say they have no evidence of any vote tampering in the election.

★ NewsLit takeaway

People can be vulnerable to conspiracy theories when they are confronted with a reality they do not want to accept. Some opponents of President-elect Donald Trump found it difficult to believe that he legitimately won the election and searched online for alternative explanations, finding conspiracies that fit their beliefs. 

Here are a few tips to avoid this kind of thinking and stay grounded when news breaks:

Recognize that memes are not news. Social media posts do not go through the same vetting process as reports from standards-based news outlets. 

Search for trusted sources. Credible claims of election fraud would draw attention from local officials, federal government agencies and news outlets, and would not appear only on social media.

Pause and consider. Content that aligns with preconceived beliefs can easily slip by unscrutinized, so be sure to double-check the origin of a claim before sharing it.

Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Susan Minichiello (@susanmini.bsky.social), Dan Evon (@danieljevon), Peter Adams (@peteradams.bsky.social), Hannah Covington (@hannahcov.bsky.social) and Pamela Brunskill (@PamelaBrunskill). It is edited by Mary Kane (@mk6325.bsky.social) and Lourdes Venard (@lourdesvenard.bsky.social).

You’ll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to [email protected].

Check out NLP's Checkology virtual classroom, where students learn how to navigate today’s information landscape by developing news literacy skills.