Nieman Lab.
Predictions for
Journalism, 2025.
The recent U.S. presidential election made it even clearer (if anyone needed proof) that podcasters, YouTubers, and content creators are closer to the audience than traditional media and journalists, and their opinions mobilize more people.
This has been happening for years, but in many sectors of journalism (at least in Latin America) we’ve refused to accept this reality. It’s been easier to dismiss them — to say that they are a passing fad, or that the public will eventually realize that what they are doing is not journalism. That is not and will not be the reality. Undoubtedly, many of them lack the informational cleanliness, data validation and sense of (supposed) neutrality that we journalists have, but they have a greater connection to the audience and have managed to create loyal communities.
It is time to accept this and learn from their way of telling stories on the right platforms — the closeness and interaction they have with the audience, and the power of creating loyal communities — instead of thinking that things will go back to the way they were before, where the media had control of the information.
There’s a sense of journalism’s moral authority and monopoly on truth, but the reality is that legacy media continue to lose audiences and credibility around the world every year, while more people get their information from TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp and trust content creators more. This undoubtedly opens the door to false information, half-truths, and increased polarization as people seek only creators who confirm their ideas or political position. We must try to change this situation, but we journalists are fighting on an almost non-existent front of intellectual superiority. People don’t feel that we are close to them.
This doesn’t mean that we have to abandon the fundamental values of journalism, such as verifying information, providing context, not lying, not looking for the easy clicks or views, and not being sensationalist. The battle with content creators is not lost, but it’s necessary to understand what formats and approaches to the communities they use. We need to stop looking down on them and learn how to deal with the wave of distrust and polarization that is reaching people.
What’s happening today in the United States has been happening for years in Mexico, Argentina, and El Salvador, to name a few. In these countries, those in power have privileged YouTubers and content creators associated with their ideology in order to continue positioning themselves among the communities they need close to them.
In Mexico, we saw this in the previous government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who favored YouTubers in his daily presidential press conferences. He preferred their easy questions to the complicated ones from the journalists of legacy media, whom he attacked throughout his administration. He also gave exclusive interviews to YouTubers and content creators and used them as spokespeople to spread false data or criticize legacy media journalists who published investigations showing corruption or failures of his government. The daily press conferences, which were broadcast on YouTube, made López Obrador the most watched streamer in Latin America in 2023 — he had 49 million hours of viewing on his channel, which has more than 4.5 million followers. The new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has followed suit.
In Argentina and El Salvador, presidents Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele have created tight networks of national and international influencers and even act as content creators themselves. Both also attack traditional media journalists on a daily basis, even filing lawsuits against them. YouTubers and content creators sympathetic to their government have direct access to the presidential communications teams. It’s very easy to see how what’s happening in these countries mirrors what is happening in the United States today.
The path is very clear. In journalism, we can continue to complain about this new generation of content creators and how those in power use them to amplify their messages of hate — or we can adapt and fight for truth, freedom of expression, and democracy.
Mael Vallejo is a Mexican journalist, vice president of content of Capital Digital, and a media columnist for Milenio.
The recent U.S. presidential election made it even clearer (if anyone needed proof) that podcasters, YouTubers, and content creators are closer to the audience than traditional media and journalists, and their opinions mobilize more people.
This has been happening for years, but in many sectors of journalism (at least in Latin America) we’ve refused to accept this reality. It’s been easier to dismiss them — to say that they are a passing fad, or that the public will eventually realize that what they are doing is not journalism. That is not and will not be the reality. Undoubtedly, many of them lack the informational cleanliness, data validation and sense of (supposed) neutrality that we journalists have, but they have a greater connection to the audience and have managed to create loyal communities.
It is time to accept this and learn from their way of telling stories on the right platforms — the closeness and interaction they have with the audience, and the power of creating loyal communities — instead of thinking that things will go back to the way they were before, where the media had control of the information.
There’s a sense of journalism’s moral authority and monopoly on truth, but the reality is that legacy media continue to lose audiences and credibility around the world every year, while more people get their information from TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp and trust content creators more. This undoubtedly opens the door to false information, half-truths, and increased polarization as people seek only creators who confirm their ideas or political position. We must try to change this situation, but we journalists are fighting on an almost non-existent front of intellectual superiority. People don’t feel that we are close to them.
This doesn’t mean that we have to abandon the fundamental values of journalism, such as verifying information, providing context, not lying, not looking for the easy clicks or views, and not being sensationalist. The battle with content creators is not lost, but it’s necessary to understand what formats and approaches to the communities they use. We need to stop looking down on them and learn how to deal with the wave of distrust and polarization that is reaching people.
What’s happening today in the United States has been happening for years in Mexico, Argentina, and El Salvador, to name a few. In these countries, those in power have privileged YouTubers and content creators associated with their ideology in order to continue positioning themselves among the communities they need close to them.
In Mexico, we saw this in the previous government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who favored YouTubers in his daily presidential press conferences. He preferred their easy questions to the complicated ones from the journalists of legacy media, whom he attacked throughout his administration. He also gave exclusive interviews to YouTubers and content creators and used them as spokespeople to spread false data or criticize legacy media journalists who published investigations showing corruption or failures of his government. The daily press conferences, which were broadcast on YouTube, made López Obrador the most watched streamer in Latin America in 2023 — he had 49 million hours of viewing on his channel, which has more than 4.5 million followers. The new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has followed suit.
In Argentina and El Salvador, presidents Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele have created tight networks of national and international influencers and even act as content creators themselves. Both also attack traditional media journalists on a daily basis, even filing lawsuits against them. YouTubers and content creators sympathetic to their government have direct access to the presidential communications teams. It’s very easy to see how what’s happening in these countries mirrors what is happening in the United States today.
The path is very clear. In journalism, we can continue to complain about this new generation of content creators and how those in power use them to amplify their messages of hate — or we can adapt and fight for truth, freedom of expression, and democracy.
Mael Vallejo is a Mexican journalist, vice president of content of Capital Digital, and a media columnist for Milenio.
