Tory Lanez shot Megan thee Stallion. That is a fact. He was found guilty of this crime and is serving a ten-year sentence in California. That is also a fact.

But the road to this verdict and the unveiling of these facts was filled with misinformation and misogynoir from media bloggers who’ve cosplayed as journalists to spread harm and gossip for clicks and clout. In February of last year, media personality DJ Akademiks tweeted that he had breaking news.

“It was revealed in court a few moments ago that Tory Lanez [sic] DNA WAS NOT found on the weapon in the Meg Thee Stallion case,” he tweeted at 11:43 a.m., garnering 1,100 retweets and more than 4,000 likes. 

Megan thee Stallion later responded to DJ Akademiks. “Court aint even started so why yall ready to start lying,” she posted on her Instagram story. “I know some of yall blogs on payroll, but please dont get sued trying to create a hate campaign. Be a real journalist and post FACTS.”

But see, that is exactly the problem. Media influencers like DJ Akademiks have become the loudest voices in the Black media space; they are not real reporters, yet these so-called personalities have been able to rise up when a news story breaks in the Black community because there is rarely any reliable truth written to combat the lies.

One reason this is happening is that legacy media is not prioritizing Black news and doesn’t know how to properly cover the Black community. Black grassroots organizations often don’t have enough money to dive deeper into an issue. Media personalities arise and tweet unbeholden to rigorous journalistic standards, filling in the gaps where the truth and expertise should be. And these bloggers are so successful because, for better or worse, they understand how to communicate to Black audiences. In the next year, there will be an even more pressing need for more reliable, nuanced stories on what is happening in the Black community. Misinformation is the new norm, Black culture is the American mainstream, and we, like any other community, are owed a chance of knowing the truth.

I was excited to see places like The Guardian and Associated Press allocate budget for someone to start covering the Black community, but I also very much believe that Black news needs to be covered on every beat as regular news, just as white stories are. Misinformation is now a mainstay in this muddled world of social media. To combat this, reliable news outlets don’t just need to hire more Black reporters to report on Black stories. They also need to assign more Black stories to true experts on the beat. It often feels as if non-Black reporters are fearful to cover the Black community, as if they’ll get it wrong or lack the nuance to do so. You cover the Black community the same as any reporter covering any area they know or don’t know about. You care. You read. Your research. You team up. You write. You tell the story.

A good example is how Meghann Cuniff became the go-to legal reporter for breaking down what happened in the Meg vs. Tory Lanez trial. I refreshed her page endlessly, looking for the facts as she rose as a safe, trusted voice. She was often the only voice anyone could use against misinformation spread by bloggers. Singer Cassie’s lawsuit against rapper P. Diddy is another good example. I saw someone thank The New York Times for breaking the story because the Times was able to legitimize Cassie’s story in a way that wouldn’t have happened if the TMZ-esque Shade Room had broken the story. It helped add a protective barrier to a narrative that gave people facts to use against bloggers when they came forth with lies. It was also a written story in one place — not scattered throughout a social timeline, with a reporter engaging with a speculative comment section.

They need to do this for us more.

I worry blogs are indoctrinating others cruelly and casually, sharing sensationalized opinions filled with vitriol that garner clicks and unleash nothing but hate into the world. Meg talks about suicidal thoughts and depression, no doubt in part of because of the Black media bloggers who tried to tear her down. Freelancing or getting a staff job at a high-profile outlet is hard, but it’s free to go online and lie, and clickbait brings in views, which brings in money.

Media literacy is incredibly low in this country, as is trust in legacy media, especially when regarding its relationship with Black news readers, who have lost confidence in the way legacy media has often portrayed them. That trust, too, needs to be restored.

Sure, gossip blogs aren’t new, but the number of Black gossip blogs compared to the number of reliable news stories we have to combat them is often disproportionate. It feels nice to have an expert who knows what they’re talking about parsing an issue. It feels nice to read a story that went through rounds of editing. It feels good to be in the regular news cycle. It shows why newsrooms should take Black news and report it as fact, pair reporters to tell fully nuanced stories, and hire more diverse interns on specialized beats rather than relegating them to the culture desk.

There is so much happening in the community that reflects who and what we are as a nation. We can’t tell our stories alone, so let’s do it together.