The new gatekeepers: Influencers and AI reshape how we consume news 📰
Journalism crumbles as influencer content takes over, raising alarms about accuracy and accountability
✨ This a bonus feature. A version of this article first appeared on Journalism.co.uk, based on a Millennial Masters interview.
The fuss that arguably the UK's biggest podcaster and star entrepreneur has allowed guests on his show to make wild claims related to sensitive health subjects got sharp tongues wagging.
Many argue, rightfully so, that with great influence, comes great responsibility. If you have people’s eyes and ears, you’ll start influencing the subconscious of even the most discerning consumers.
But the Steven Bartlett debate and his shift from business oriented content into health topics (amid alleged harmful misinformation, which his team defended) — a pivot which almost doubled his audience in the past year — is a symptom of a much wider problem with media and the platforms distributing content while capturing most of the value.
Remember the podcast election frenzy in the US? Well, this is Bartlett’s own Joe Rogan moment, where sensationalism trumps substance, and the quest for audience overshadows a perceived duty to inform responsibly.
This is really the big difference between journalism and content.
That’s because traditional newsrooms are fading fast, replaced by a new ecosystem of influencers and AI-driven platforms. And as journalism decentralises, critical questions arise about accuracy, accountability, and the survival of responsible reporting.
This drastic change is largely driven by the dominance of social media platforms, which leverage sophisticated AI algorithms not to inform, but to drive engagement and, often, enragement.
Millennial Masters is brought to you by Jolt ⚡️ The UK’s top web hosting service
Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, CEO of Impress, the UK’s independent press regulator, is calling for urgent action to ensure journalism survives the shift to AI-driven and decentralised media.
Speaking in a recent episode of my Millennial Masters podcast, Lexie said: “The news organisation which sits in an office somewhere with a hierarchy, going out and collecting stories and coming back and putting them together and then distributing them to audiences, is rapidly changing.”
AI-driven algorithms on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (Twitter) have become the new gatekeepers of information, shaping what we see and believe. Even search engines like Google now use AI to generate summaries for queries. But these systems often operate within a black box. This lack of transparency raises critical questions about accountability and the integrity of the information we consume.
Lexie pointed out “algorithms are designed by people, people making decisions. And so the algorithm does what it’s told. The algorithm doesn't sit over here without any humans in the loop.” These algorithms curate content based on user behaviour, often prioritising engagement over accuracy, which can lead to the spread of misinformation and biased narratives.
“We’re seeing the rise of news influencers, news personalities, and people who don’t recognise what they’re doing as news and journalism, but nevertheless becoming the main sources of news for others,” Lexie explained.
Almost 40% of adults under 30 in the US say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.
At the same time, decentralised platforms make regulation even more complex. With countless sources generating and sharing content, maintaining editorial standards and accountability becomes nearly impossible. As Lexie noted, “the sources within those platforms are incredibly diverse and very difficult to capture as a media market.”
When pressed about the role of AI in media, Lexie noted the urgent need for regulatory frameworks: “This idea that we shouldn't do anything now and we should just wait and see what happens is an abdication of our responsibility to recognise the harm it is doing right now.”
“If people are relying on the information produced through AI-assisted platforms, and that information isn't accurate, it doesn't have integrity, it is breaching people's rights, then we need to act on that now,” Lexie believes.
Part of the problem, Lexie explained, lies in the disconnect between AI developers and the industries where their tools are deployed. “An AI company is not necessarily developing software that is going to spread misinformation. And yet when it ends up in a search engine and the data it’s been trained on is entirely corrupted by bias and is incomplete, then misinformation is the obvious consequence of its application.”
Lexie was critical of the current self-regulation efforts among AI and social media companies, stating, “they have to take more responsibility. I think this is part of the consequence of us not having a really grown up conversation about how our information consumption is changing.”
Without robust regulations, platforms will continue influencing public opinion without accountability. Lexie stressed the need to understand the market, track emerging tools, and regulate integrations where harm is already evident. “We need to create regulation around those integrations where it’s very obvious that the harms already exist and will be perpetuated by it.”
The next steps will require leadership and vision, but there aren’t signs that the media has such visionaries. Lexie said “there's a temptation for markets, the regulators and bodies that sit around them, to try and self-perpetuate and go ‘let's just keep things as they are; let's try and preserve them as much as possible as they are.”
That’s why Lexis believes “the biggest challenge right now is for everyone in the media sector to recognise that change is happening. But there isn't a lot of leadership on what is changing to, and how do we keep control over the parts that we want to preserve, to ensure that those are still standing on the other side of this change.”
— You can listen or watch the whole discussion with Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana in this episode of Millennial Masters with Daniel Ionescu.
