‘News influencers’ are racking up billions of views – and not checking their facts

By Kelly Fincham, Lecturer in Journalism and Communications, University of Galway

The way many people get their news today would be unrecognisable to broadsheet devotees of decades past. You may read email newsletters, scroll headlines on social media, or go directly to the BBC’s own TikTok account to find out what’s happening in the world.

New data from the nonpartisan American thinktank Pew Research Centre shows that a large number of Americans – one in five – get their news from social media “news influencers”. The figure jumps to almost one in four for…

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