If you are much like me, I tend to do most of my newsgathering from a variety of sources such as television, radio, and social media. I must admit that I favor social media over the other communication channels because major news outlets frequently publish stories online, outside of their normal time slots in television and radio broadcasting. To go a step further, not only do I incorporate the opinions of major news journalists, I tend to lean more in favor of gathering news from non-journalists as they too have access to breaking news and not operating under the agenda of the status quo. They are what we call ‘social media influencers’ and ‘opinion leaders.’
These individuals have gained acceptance and credibility with their viewers and take on the role as the gatekeeper between the media and audience as seen in the Two-Step Theory figure below. The media pays some individuals to help push their agenda. Then, there are bloggers or vloggers who take a non-partisan stance by giving their personal opinions and critically analyzing the media’s viewpoints, hoping to convince their viewers to accept them as their viable news source.
BlogsonMediaTheoryImplementationofTheTwo-StepTheory2020Bing.com
Before accepting a non-journalist as a legitimate source, there’s a period of observation and fact checking done on my end in order to deem them trustworthy. If you feel obligated to fact-check major news outlets, you should feel equally the same about checking sources from non-journalists. You want to ensure that you have a well-balanced view of information received by a variety of sources that you can validate and accept as truth. Media Bias/Fact Check, a search engine site, allows you the ability to verify information to determine its authenticity. Below is a list several fact-checking sites they suggest to use for verifying news sources.
Now that we are in an environment where the public is beginning to question the legitimacy of news media reporting, it’s important to keep an open-mind of including sources from those who are non-journalists. However, I ask that you err on the side of caution because non-journalists are also opinion leaders or people with an influential voice who could be advocates for the news media. To sum it up, fact-check any source who has the ability to sway public opinion and shape ideologies that personally affect your values and beliefs. I would consider myself more of a follower at this time because it takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to report stories and fact check them before publishing. Maybe in the near future my role will change as an opinion leader, but one who independently reports facts and not part of mass media. Until then, I will continue to rely on my short list of resources and fact-check if I desire to learn more about a topic. Check out this video (2:34 minutes) below for a quick overview of the two-step theory.
Mass Communications Theory - Education 
