The way people get their news has been changing, with many depending heavily on social media for information.
Traditional news organizations have made an effort to be a part of these platforms. But we’ve also seen more social media influencers trying to cross over to the news side of things.
This came to a head here in Texas recently when influencers flocked to the Hill Country to create content in the aftermath of the July 4 flood.
At Texas Monthly, Lauren Larson wrote about how their presence did not go unnoticed. She spoke with the Texas Standard on how this has the potential to be both helpful and harmful.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How did the social media posts coming from influencers get on your radar?
Lauren Larson: Well, I heard about them before I saw them because I was writing about Crider’s Rodeo and Dancehall in Hunt and they told me a story about someone appearing on their property who was a little bit unwelcome.
And then I started looking for these posts and just saw tons of them. So that’s kind of how I came across them.
Give us some examples of what you saw on social.
I think that there was a wide range of behavior, some good and some a little bit more concerning. I think there were a lot of people doing sort of drive-by filming of the damage, especially in hard-hit communities.
But there were also a lot people doing really wonderful man-on-the-street interviews with locals who seemed to be there voluntarily and to be glad for the coverage. So yeah, we saw a huge spectrum of behavior.
We’ve certainly seen those drive-bys in other cases. Now, you mentioned some folks affected by the flooding saw those influencers in their community. What was their response?
Well, I think initially there was a lot of concern over misinformation. And this was a very rapidly developing situation, and there was a lot of misinformation on the ground.
And one man in particular, I feel so bad for him, because he accidentally amplified this rumor that two girls had been found alive 30 feet up in a tree. This turned out to be not true. And he didn’t start the rumor; he wasn’t doing anything malicious. Everybody on the ground was saying this, and it really buoyed volunteers that day.
But I think that that sort of set the tone for a lot of concern from locals, A) about misinformation, but B) about just kind of burnout – being approached over and over and by people with cameras and phones wanting to do interviews, which is typically the provenance of journalists.
» MORE: Complete coverage of deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country
Let’s delve into that a little bit, because you mentioned, you know, he didn’t start the rumor; he amplified it. That’s something journalists are very careful about not doing.
What are the advantages of having influencers in the field and some of the drawbacks?
Well, as a journalist, I really value the videos that influencers create because they can be so agile and they can post right from the field.
And, you know, they often today get different access than I get as a member of the mainstream media, because there are a lot of people who are suspicious of mainstream media who might not be suspicious of an influencer. So that’s really, really useful. And they reach audiences we don’t necessarily reach.
The risks are in a very fraught situation like this – with a lot of fatalities, that requires a lot of delicacy – you do want people reporting who are familiar with, I don’t want to say the rules or even the ethics, but just sort of the norms of journalism.
Like, do you go into a house that has been swept away from its original location? Like, is that trespassing if it’s not where it was standing and when search and rescue people are going in and out. That’s a very interesting area that I’d be glad to have an editor weigh in on and a whole staff even weigh in.
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Really, this is an evolving area. And you talked about influencers being very good at engaging audiences, and they have large followings.
What do you think, are we going to see more of this? And was there anything that surprised you as you watched this unfold in Central Texas?
I think the influencers are now part of the fabric of news, especially in an event like this that gets a lot of eyeballs. And I think we’re going to see more and more of them.
And I think that there’s a lot of interest from these influencers in training. Knight Center for Journalism at UT offers this class to help influencers learn how to better report the news, and they had like 10,000 people take this course.
So there’s a huge amount of interest from these content creators to do this in a very ethical way. And so I think on the whole, it’s a really positive trend with a couple of bad apples maybe.
And we certainly can learn some things as journalists from their experience out there engaging people.
Absolutely. It wasn’t just content creators who amplified that rumor about the two girls in the tree. There were several national outlets that picked that up as well.
