Opinion: Without a generational media hero, Gen Z is swimming in a black hole of news

By Ellie Blanchard?

When my news alerts started pinging about Jon Stewart’s impending return to The Daily Show, I opened Google to make sure I was thinking of the right guy. The truth is, I’ve never seen the show.??

I’m a member of Gen Z, the population born between 1997 and 2012, so my television consumption is rarely – or more accurately, never – filled with the likes of Stewart and his fellow comedian-commentator-show hosts.?

Much of my parents’ generation still looks to late night show hosts to gain a sense of what’s going on in the world, welcoming the element of comedic relief. My grandparents had Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” keeping the country informed.?

Gen Z doesn’t heroize media figures anymore. We no longer have a designated hour of the day to watch our go-to show, leaving many of us to sort through a black hole of content. Since the regularly scheduled programs that help viewers digest current events don’t appeal to Gen Z, we’re left overwhelmed by the news and vulnerable to misinformation. My generation needs media literacy skills to sort through it all so we can stay engaged and informed by facts, especially during a consequential election year.?

Over three-quarters of Gen Z adults obtain most of their information about news and breaking events from social media, an oversaturated information space that can feel like an endless void. We have more choices for news consumption than any previous generation, which can have benefits. It’s easier for us to compare coverage from multiple sources and hear different perspectives. Unlike our parents, we can also tailor our news intake with a growing presence of nonprofit newsrooms, which are increasing access to coverage of topics and communities that have been neglected by traditional media outlets in the past.?

But too many choices aren’t always a good thing, especially when unreliable content producers can easily diffuse misinformation into the mix. The voices competing for our attention can blend into an overarching buzz, creating a general apathy towards the news.??

About 40% of young people actively avoid news, The Nieman Lab found, using data from the 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report. If they’re not steering clear of all news, they’re more often avoiding selective topics, like politics or COVID-19. In the wake of this year’s elections, shunning politics will keep us from casting informed ballots.??

To protect ourselves against feeling overwhelmed, our practice becomes tiptoeing past the headlines. Avoidance feels easier than choosing which of the hundreds of posts is worth opening to read at length. But if our understanding of the news stops at the headlines we skim, we’re incapable of critically thinking, analyzing or constructing informed opinions about current events. The opinions we do form are more influenced by infographics that our engaged peers post, which can lack context for the sake of engagement and easy shares.??

This phenomenon begs for an increase in media literacy education. At the News Literacy Project, where I intern, I’ve seen how easy it is for social media users to fall victim to manipulated images, AI-generated content or conspiracy theories, just to name a few. On an oversaturated media platform where misinformation blends in, what’s to keep young people from being fed accounts that spread ideas not rooted in fact???

Equipping Gen Z, and any internet and social media user, to assess quality journalism and spot misinformation is critical in a fractured media landscape, where the option to dive into a deep rabbit hole of questionable ideas is just as accessible as looking at a legitimate news account. It becomes even more important during an election year, when social media platforms have pulled away from moderation and AI has made it easier than ever to create and spread realistic hoaxes.?

We’ll start to feel less overloaded by learning basic fact-checking skills, looking into where data comes from, exploring the context of information and confirming facts with other sources. With media literacy training, recognizing biases and manipulated content becomes easier, and we can do our best to identify misinformation and avoid spreading it to our peers online.?

Now that media heroes have been replaced with an abyss of content producers, Gen Z has a choice to determine who and what we latch onto. Making informed choices about our news habits will be key to sorting through an influx of information about our local, state and federal elections. Let’s make sure we’re an active audience for the truth.?

Ellie Blanchard is an intern at the nonprofit News Literacy Project. She graduated in 2023 from American University's School of Communication.?