News Influencers and Gen Z Are Reshaping News

[Celerity]

Gen Z increasingly relies on influencers for news and information—but the quality is all over the place.

https://prospect.org/2026/05/30/influencers-gen-z-reshaping-news/



The days of picking up the Sunday paper at a neighborhood newsstand, or even gathering around the television to catch the evening news, are fast disappearing. Young Americans are increasingly relying on social media platforms, where news influencers—not traditional legacy outlets—often hold sway over their news and information diets. Nearly 40 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, a cohort raised online, regularly consume information from news influencers—a higher share than any other age group. Teenagers ages 13 to 17 are even more engaged, with 81 percent saying they stay informed through influencers.

The Pew Research Center defines news influencers as individuals “who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers” on Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, or YouTube. They’re also known for their sometimes strained relationships with legacy media outlets, as well as their humorous, opinionated, and personality-based content, which tends to lean more on personal branding than journalistic credentials—all of which appeal to younger audiences.

Creators like Carlos Eduardo Espina and V Spehar provide quality news in ways that connect with young people, reaching individuals who may engage less with traditional media sources. Espina has amassed more than 15 million followers with his Spanish-language posts geared toward Latinos, while Spehar has garnered nearly five million followers across platforms with their easily digestible recaps of recent national political and cultural events. Other influencers like podcaster Joe Rogan and independent journalist James Li take more controversial positions on some of the major issues of the day.

But even the most committed social media journalists are not immune to the constraints of video sharing on online platforms, which prioritize punchy hooks, short clips, and high engagement. For Riley Sharon, a senior at DePaul University in Chicago, the innate pressures of short-form content make it difficult for news influencers to create quality journalism, and for viewers to properly process it.

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