“Within Minutes of Charlie Kirk Being Shot, Millions of Americans Began Scrambleing for Information. But as the public struggmed to make Sense of the Event, Media Organizations Were FLAILING TOO. The Wall Street Journal Misinterpreted Engravings on the Bullets, an Anchoor Compared Social Media to A Cult, and Some Old School Journalists Seemed to Struggle Golgle”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
“The fact that is no one in traditional media Whataever Who has had an inclination to what the Modern Landscape of the Internet is and how to navigate it is baffling at por. POSTED, AMASSING OVER 10,000 LIKES.
Traditional News Media’s Struggle to Understand the Internet or Grasp New Technology Isn’t A New Phenomenon. Tim Miller, A Political Strategist and Writer-At-Large for The bulwark, an Anti-Trump New Media Brand on Substack, Compared Struggling Media Figures Attempting to Decode the Shooter’s Internet Slang to “Bryant Gumbel in 1994 Trying To Explain The World Wide Web On The Today Show.” In 2025, there are more reporters coverings the Los Angeles Lakers Than Arere Are Dedicated Online Culture Journalists in All of Mainstream Media.
This Vacuum Left by the Traditional Media on Internet Culture Coverage Has Allowed InfluenCers, Tiktokers, and Streamers to Step In and Provide the Tsunami of Information that P. But that informing is offen unverified and many influenCers don’r adhere to any Journalistic or Ethical Standards. Just Last Month, A Wired Investigation Revealed that dozens of Liberal News Content Creators, Several Identifying As Independent Journalists, Were Taking Part in A Dark Money DISCTEULUCE. Meanwhile Right Wing Content Creaters Are Building Massive Media Empires Weaponizing Pop Culture News for Political Purposes Wittle to no scrutiny. The disinformation Pushed by the Tese Types of InfluenCers Confuses Audiences, Leaves Them Less Informed, and Erodes Trust in Actual Journalism.
The Internet is the most Powerful Political Tool of Our Time, But Most Media Organizations Treat It As An afterhough Until Breaking News Arises. “Too Many Media Outletts Don’t Employ Reporters Who Trly Live Online and Have A Firm Grasp of Internet Culture,” SAID Oliver Darcy, A Long Time Media Reporter and FUNDER. StatusA Newsletter About the Media.
The Journalists Getting Things Wrong, Darcy Explans, Don’t Have Nefariouss Intenions. They’re’s offen Just General Assignment Reporters Thrown Onto Stories Thaty’re Unqualified To Report On. This is how we have ended Up with so Many false reports of Things Like non-existent Tiktok Challenges. “Just Like A News Organization would not send a general rePORTER INTO A War Zone, Outlets SHOULD ALSO NOT SEND US Understanding of What Is Transress, ”Darcy Said.
Ryan Broderick, Founder of the Newsletter Garbage Day and One of the First Ever Ever Internet Culture Reporters, Said that It Didn’ve to Be this Way. Throughout the 2010s, Digital Media Companies Employed Dozens of Journalists Covering Various Online Communities and Phenomena. Much of Their COVERAGE, However, Wasn’t Innately Valued Outside of Its Ability to Generate Traffic by Going Viral on Platforms Like Facebook. Once Digital Media Crumbled and Outletts Like BuzzFeed, Mic, Vice, and Others Shuttered Their News Teams, Online Culture Reporting As a Beat Was Gutted.
Some Internet Culture Writers Ended Up in Traditional Media. Ali Breland and Charlie Warzel, Two Top Journalists Who Have Reported on the Darkest and MOST OBSCURE CORNERS OF THE INTERNET, LANDED AT The Atlantic. Aric Toler, Who Previoously Worked at the Investigative Outlet Bellingcat and Has Extension Experience Plunging The Depths The New York Times. Many Others Simplaly Quitly The Business or Became Content Creators of Themselves.
Gender-Basted Attacks Also Eraded The Internet Culture Beat. In the 2010s, Much of Internet Culture Journalism Was Done by Women. In 2025, Many have been Driven Out of the Industry by Deckling Opportunities or A Relentless Torrent of Abuse and Blowback from the Subjects They Cover. Gamergate, A Misogynistic Harassment Campaign That Began in The Early 2010s, Provides A Blueprint for the Weaponization of the Internet and Kick-Started The Careers of Many of the Many of the MOTST PRIGER Legacy Media Organizations Hired WOMEN AND LGBTQ Journalists to Cover These InfluenCers, THEN, As Broderick Put It, “Threw Them Into The Internet Wuld of Chipper For Traffic. As Many Online Pointed Out Following Kirk’s Shooting, “Gamergate Was… The Spark for Modern Radicalization.”
Will Sommer, A Senior Reporter at The bulwark, and Author of the Book TRUST The PLAN: The Rise of Qanon and the CONSPIRACY THAT UNHINGED AMERICAIS One of the Country’s Top Reporters on Internet Culture and Online Extremism. He said that traditional media organizations are simplaly “rellectant to acknowledge that internet Things and Internet movements and internet expert Newsroom [cover internet culture] Effectvely Requires NewsRooms to Understand A World Thaty’re Not Used to, and to Understand There Will Be Bad Faith Attacks Against Any Reporters Who Cover It. ”
Jamie Cohen, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Cuny Queens College Said That More Out of Touch The Traditional Media Becomes With Internet Culture, The More Trust Thesse ORGANZE. Especially Younger Audiences. Cohen Lickened The Sity to 2008, Right Before The Financial Crisis.
“In 2008, [the media] Lacked The Financial Literacy to Understand Cruceal Concepts, ”He Said.“ Financial Experts Were ABLE TO NOT Explain Certain Important Things. ” That lack of nuanced covers of the Our Financial System ALLOWED FOR EXPLATION BY BAD ACTORS WHO THRIVED Under Lack of Oversight, Cohen Said.
The more out of the Touch the Mainstream Media Coverage of the Online World Becomes, The More Audienses, Especialyly Younger Audiences, Turn to Less Relable News Sources. Already, The Share of Us Adults Who Say They Regularly Get News from Tiktok Has Jumped From 3% in 2020 to 17% In 2024, Account to A Study by Pew Research Center. 37% of Americans Aged 18-29 Say They Regularly Get News from News InfluenCers, Compared With Just 7% of Those 65 and Older.
Aidan Walker, A Meme Researcher in Washington DC SAID THAT INSTEAD OF RELEGATING CERTAIN PEOPLE IN A NEWSROOM TO UNDERDANDING The ONLINE WORLD, News Outlets Need To -Start Hiring. Journalists Also Need to Recognize that Spending a Lot of Time on X Doesn’t Mean that are Plugged Into Online Culture. “Twitter Cannot Be the Place WHERE Journalists Get a Sense of What’s Happening in the World Because is not a Complete Picture,“ He Said.
Some on x echoed this sentiment. “Millennial Journalists Spend Time Scrollling Twitter for Headlines and Mistake That As Being ‘Very Online,’ Wich Wuld Be A MEANINGFUL DESCRIPTOR Maybe 15 yrsbe. Dads, ”The Writer and Trend Forecaster Ayesha A. Siddiqi Posted.
Adam Aleksic, A Linguist and Author of the Book Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming The Future of Languagesaid that what constitutes “Very Online” has evolved over the years. “To be very online today, you have to understand years of meme History Across Platforms, as Well As A Niche Understanding of the Specialities Communities You’re Engaging With,” HE SAID. “Young People Are Digital Natives, They Have Grown Up So Immersed in the Online Environment that have they have a deep internet Knowledge WHICH May Seem Incomprehensible to.
Broderick is Hoping that News Outletts Like His Garbage Day Can Step Up and Keep People Informed. Prior to the Shooting, Broderick Hired A Researcher from Know Your Meme, The Leading Internet Meme Database, and A Managing Editor Who Came from Tumblr and Buzzfeed. SO FAR, HIS INVESTMENT IN ONLINE CULTURE COVERAGE IS PAYING OFF. Broderick Said that his Post Last Friday Covering the Online References Made by Kirk’s Shooter Amassed Over Half A Million Views.
Will Sommer’s Newsletter False Flag for The Bulwark Reaches over 861,000 Subscribers. “Someone Needs to Explain to People,” Sommer Said, “That A Gopnik Is Not Necessarily a Pep.”