Audiences will increasingly direct news coverage — for better and for worse

The shattering of mass media into niche channels is nearly complete. For the first time in 2025, more people in the U.S. accessed news through social media text and videos than through TV or news websites, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

These new outlets are usually run by individuals or small teams that serve audiences ranging from tens of thousands to tens of millions. Their creators depend on close ties to their audiences: They respond to comments, chase the stories their audiences suggest, and adjust their reporting based on viewer feedback. In return, their audiences often support them monetarily, whether through direct donations or by listening to the ads or paid promotions embedded in their work.

There are benefits to this close relationship — creators are more likely to do “service journalism” that is truly helpful to audiences, and to find creative ways to talk about complex topics using skits or comedy. They cover communities and topics that were never covered by legacy media. They are more accountable to their audiences, more often willing to admit when they are wrong, to apologize and commit to do better. There is much that legacy media can learn from the ways that creators have built trust with their audiences.

But a news landscape where creators are deeply entwined with their audiences can also be distorting. Audiences that only want conspiracy theories will only get them. Audiences who want outrage all the time will get that. Less popular topics — like audits of city council’s budget or corporate tax shenanigans — may get less attention in a demand-driven news environment.

Political scientist Kevin Munger argues that this intense audience cultivation has created a demand-driven news landscape that has few shared values beyond seeking clicks. He writes in his analysis of YouTube political channels: “YouTubers are not ‘Creators’ but Creations of their audience.”

Of course, legacy news leaders are also entwined with the elites that they cover, creating a different kind of distortion. But the legacy gatekeepers also had surplus monopoly profits that supported noblesse oblige coverage of crucial but unsexy civic information.

Now that social media channels have overtaken legacy media, the demand-driven audience feedback loop is becoming the baseline for all media. In other words: The audience has taken the wheel, and we’re all in the passenger seat now.