"The 2024 election made this shift impossible to ignore. YouTube - and the broader creator world - got hammered with criticism for the way political narratives were shaped by podcasts with no editorial oversight, no fact-checking, and no reporting muscle behind them. When creator-driven conversations outweighed traditional newsrooms in shaping public understanding, it exposed how vulnerable YouTube was to the very thing it never built for: civic responsibility at scale."
"Tech creator Marques Brownlee has become his generation's most influential voice in consumer technology - filling the space once occupied by critics like Walt Mossberg. Philip DeFranco may have started by covering interpersonal drama among online creators, but his show has matured into something closer to a nightly news broadcast than a vlog. Even MrBeast - whose empire is built on spectacle - is now treated like a public institution whose decisions carry civic weight,"
YouTube is shifting from an entertainment-first platform toward one where journalism underpins growth, prestige, and cultural influence. The 2024 election revealed how unchecked creator-driven narratives and podcasts lacking editorial oversight and fact-checking shaped political understanding and exposed a need for civic responsibility. Leading creators are assuming roles similar to legacy media: critics, nightly newscasters, trade publishers, and quasi-public institutions whose decisions carry civic weight. That institutionalization creates demand for reporting, verification, and editorial standards that entertainment alone cannot supply. YouTube faces pressure to evolve content credibility as it competes with platforms that rely on prestige programming.
Read at Nieman Lab
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