Social Media's Relationship with Journalists

I want to preface this post by saying that I don't love social media. I go through bouts where I feel the need to go completely offline and do a thorough detox from social media. That being said, it should be acknowledged the essential relationship that is being formed between social media and journalists.

X (formerly known as Twitter) especially is one of the best ways to get the most up-to-date headlines, with a majority of journalists using the platform to update their fans on what is going on. The fact of the matter is, that print journalism is becoming more and more obsolete, and large publications are trying to find different ways to stay in business while finding a pathway to direct their content to the younger generations.

Most Gen Z individuals get their news on social media as of late. I am not much better, I have push notifications for The New York Times, AP, and Fox News, though I get a majority of my news on X. It's an accessible form and it's far lighter than a traditional paper with fewer worries

about getting the residual ink on your hands.

When considering what the positives and negatives are of the new social media age, it's easy to focus on the tools that social media has on a person's mental health. Social media allows individuals to anonymously comment on different posts without the fear of backlash and that leads to a lot of hate spreading around the internet. While it is an immediate publication and a quicker form of communication, it comes with a lot of backlash from the audience since that barrier between the audience and the journalist becomes a door.

Audiences are more likely to interact with the journalist now with the advent of social media since it's a lot easier to have a direct relationship and conversation on these new applications. The audience is far more active than it was before and while it can be a good thing with the aid of citizen journalism, there's also a lot of potential for hate to come out of this new system. Audience members who don't enjoy a particular public figure can doxx them or send out their address for different people to go and invade this person's privacy or can spread false rumors about them to perpetrate this system of hate.

The relationship between the audience

and the journalist is an odd one with their words being helpful and even crucial to the portrayal of a story though at the same time the two should remain separated due to the amount of damage that the audience can cause the journalist.

Some essential skills that journalists need in the new social media world would be a basic understanding of how social media works and how to effectively track engagement over time. As well would be an understanding of when to post. The New York Times spoke on this saying that it was more effective to post hard-hitting news in the morning and more long-form podcast-escque publications at night. This is due to the fact that individuals like to begin the day by preparing themselves with the latest headlines and by the end of the day they like to wind down with less demanding content.