In today’s society, finding out news in Hollywood is as easy as checking the weather. With the popularity of apps like X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, etc., the accessibility of celebrity-based news has increased. Whether it’s a casting announcement broken by Pop Crave or a new trailer posted by Film Updates mere minutes after it dropped, social media-based “news” accounts have infiltrated the news cycle. By the time legacy outlets publish their carefully published articles, often the conversation has already run its course.
The spawning of accounts dedicated to real-time updates on entertainment news has become an influential aspect of pop culture journalism. Reshaping how news travels, how it is framed, and the audience it reaches. These accounts tend to reach audiences that legacy news outlets don’t because of how they are compatible with the new generation’s short attention span.
Often, getting information from an account like Pop Crave is as simple as reading a short sentence or paragraph accompanied by an image. Unlike traditional news outlets, a Pop Crave post is not an in-depth article. It is completely informal, as if someone is simply informing you of an event. “I think that these accounts are finding new ways to communicate with people and meet people where they’re at on social media, and meet people in ways that they want to be spoken to that doesn’t come off so corporate,” said journalist and Emmy-winning producer Hunter Reis. Reis has worked for traditional entertainment news outlets such as E! News and Entertainment Tonight, which may often find themselves competing with accounts like Pop Crave for views and attention.
Most update accounts are not reporting original news. They’re pulling from studio announcements, press releases, and sometimes even other update accounts. They also leave most information out, as there are only so many words you can use in a post. “It’s definitely quickened the news cycle 100%. I’ve found too that most people, when taking the updates from those places, or social media, in general, typically don’t check it against anything else or take it as fact,” comments Olivia Lindquist, co-editor in chief of Five Cent Sound Magazine. “It’s definitely caused a downslide in recent years with standard journalism quality overall because everyone’s trying to get the headline out first, even if it leaves out any sort of explanation of nuance on the topic at hand.”
The lack of fact-checking is one downside of social-first news. In traditional journalism, there is a norm set in place that stops the spread of misinformation. Fact-checking, corrections, ethical standards, and legal oversight– all set up to provide traditional journalists the tools to create an article that is as factually accurate as possible. Sometimes these systems fail. In the entertainment news industry there have been many legacy media outlets that have fallen victim to rumors or unethical journalism, such as TMZ, and it is what makes some people hesistant to trust them, “Many see these new constantly-posting-update accounts as trustworthy sources because they don’t have a history behind them to point out mistakes and because they feed into the biases of their audience way more than they provide as unbiased news as they possibly can,” Lindquist added.
Now, despite predictions and fears, these update accounts have not put traditional journalism out of a job. Over the years, Pop Crave has ventured more into politics and culture as well as entertainment news, but it still doesn’t hold the same credibility as the New York Times. These accounts prioritize speed rather than details, and so it leaves room for other outlets to capitalize on stories; they just have to try to match Pop Crave or Film Updates’ speed.
These social-first accounts have begun to inspire outlets to utilize social media to connect with a broader audience. Many legacy outlets are breaking news on X while saving deeper analysis for their websites. Reporters engage directly with audiences, clarifying details in threads and pushing back against misinterpretations.
In turn, some of these update accounts are professionalizing themselves. They’re citing their sources and adding disclaimers. They’ve hired teams. A lot of these accounts have started blurring the lines between fan accounts and media outlets. “I think that they’re fully functioning machines,” Reis remarked. “And just like how magazines were a huge hit with teenagers thirty, forty years ago, I think this is just that new iteration of that.”
It is possible that the future of journalism belongs to a hybrid between these accounts and traditional outlets. Perhaps there is space for collaboration between these two mediums. Journalists have already begun to move towards social media for their content. Whether it be creating short-form videos to keep people informed, or uploading a full-length segment to their feed. The use of social media in journalism, especially in today’s day and age, is not absurd. Reis commented that, to him, the future of entertainment journalism includes accounts like Pop Crave. “ I think that some of the legacy things will definitely always be around, like Entertainment Tonight is syndicated, so I don’t really see that going away anytime soon, but I think that more people are going to be getting their [news] online, digitally.”
Realistically, at its best, the rise of update accounts has expanded access to entertainment news. You no longer need industry connections to stay informed. At its worst, it risks reducing journalism to a fight for engagement and perhaps pushes legacy news outlets further away from the general public. The challenge that we now face as journalists, who value traditional articles and writers’ rooms, is to utilize the feed and social media to restore the core values of reporting. The survival of entertainment journalism depends on its ability to exist within the feed. Using social media to widen its reach and provide a human perspective, but not succumb to the biases and lack of ethics that sites like X are known for.
Popline News 