Once again social media takes the win. According to BBC news, 54 percent of people get their news from social media like Facebook, X, and Youtube and about the same number of people get their news by reading online news sites (Youngs). The fact is that fewer people are watching the daily news on television. In an Eye of the Gale questionnaire, the majority of LHS students who responded indicated that they usually rely on social media for news.
LHS junior Jack Williamson said that he follows two major online news sources to keep up with current events.
“I get my news from allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news and time.com. When using Time, I read the top three daily articles then scroll through to see if there’s any other articles I may want to read. I also use Allsides by choosing the articles that look most important to me to get the full story on things I’m not sure about,” said Williamson.
LHS junior Katie Coy, also reads online news articles but said she distrusts the larger news companies.
“I follow a few trusted journalists and keep up with them on a daily basis. I read most large scale news on Socialist Alternative or occasionally CNN but I’m extremely skeptical when it comes to large scale news sources,” said Coy.
Unlike Williamson and Coy, LHS senior Harley Seesholtz occasionally keeps up with the news on social media platforms, but mostly waits to get informed about it from others.
“Honestly, I wait for someone to tell me. Unless I see it on an internet news outlet (which I barely ever trust, always get your news from unbiased sources that share both/all sides of a discussion or event), or it happens near me, I usually have no idea,” said Seesholtz.
LHS junior Zech Weldon occasionally stays up with the current events and researches about it through social media.
“When I have free time and I’m doom scrolling on Tik Tok, I happen to see a lot of news and world events, then I typically go down rabbit holes of research,” said Weldon.
In an online article, “This is How People in 2025 Are Getting Their News,” published by the World Economic Forum, traditional media news sources are struggling to keep viewers as social media has steadily overtaken audiences.
“In the US, for example, the proportion of people that say social media is their main source of news has risen significantly in the past decade, from around 4% in 2015 to 34% in 2025. The proportion of people accessing news via social media and video networks in the US overtook both TV news and news websites for the first time” (Elliott).
Moreover, according to the article, “Overview and Key Findings of the 2025 Digital News Report” published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Facebook continues to reel in the highest number of readers.
“Around a third of our global sample use Facebook (36%) and YouTube (30%) for news each week. Instagram (19%) and WhatsApp (19%) are used by around a fifth, while TikTok (16%) remains ahead of X at 12%” (Newman).
While the internet is full of fake news, there are steps viewers and readers can take to determine the validity of the
news they see online. For example, check the URL and site, and look for the “about us” information on the website. Verify that the sources of the information in the news articles are from reputable sources. Evaluate the information by checking facts rather than relying on opinion pieces. The UC Berkeley Library suggests several organizations that are generally regarded as reputable fact-checking organizations such as Politifact, Factcheck.org, and Snopes.com, among others.
