Millennial Gatekeepers
By Janelle Bradley
Journalism is a profession that requires intellectuals that would be able to be a gatekeeper of information for the public. Although the 21st century would make it increasingly harder for these professional individuals to protect civilians from unnecessary and detrimental information that is passed on from social media platforms.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are what many journalists call an echo chamber of information, regurgitating news for each share. Another way you can see it is these platforms are playing a horrid game of telephone with billions of users that log into their apps every day. This eventually has a hindering effect on journalism.
Facebook and Twitter contain bots and algorithms to find stories that would matter to its audience but they can’t prevent the things that a real journalist would do as a gatekeeper. Journalists would ensure the validity of their story and resources while social media can’t always ensure that on their own.
In a community where everyone can share videos and add their two cents to everything, you never really know the truth because everyone states their opinion as a fact. Even if you rely on the blue checkmark news outlet as your go-to news, chances are that the content they create is being outweighed by the opinions and shares of your peers and users on Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook is the biggest online community in the world and many journalists are frustrated with the overwhelming amount of Facebook users that go to the media platform as their end all be all source. Many people have argued that there needs to be an alternative to Facebook because it’s such a Media Giant monopolizing the communication world. So much so that it can’t really help or control the misleading information and manipulated or altered news that it presents.
Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg even admitted to Facebook’s flawed mechanism in his manifesto written in February. He spoke on Facebook taking part of internet hoaxes and sensationalizing news by saying “Are we creating the world we want?” and he continued to say that Facebook needs to help the public see a more “complete picture” of the world.
How is this achieved through social media? In platforms like Facebook people see what they want to see and the built-in bots and algorithms filter out everything they wouldn’t like or care to learn about to help advertisers get their product out to the right people.
Facebook can’t guarantee a complete picture, because the public puts out what they like and the technology ensures to keep spewing out material that would be in their comfort zone. Journalists are truly the only ones to actually provide the truth that no one may like hearing but needs to be aware of. Human journalists that are filtering what the public needs to know is better than a social media platform that caters to most of the world personally. Social media has the leverage to get things out faster, but real gatekeepers get things out while staying true to journalistic ethics.
There wouldn’t be an online hoax making being a frontliner for the Washington Post. As consumers, you are to be aware of who your gatekeepers are and what you digest as factual information.
