Where Do You Find Your Information?

For several semesters I taught "Critical Studies in Media" at St. Edward's University. Yesterday, I posted advice for voters during the final days of the 2026 midterm elections. Today, I read "Reliable Sources", CNN media guru Brian Stetler's take on the state of our media. It encapsulates many of the things that I taught. Yes, it's a rare long post for me.

"As the midterm elections approach, it’s imperative to analyze where, when and how people are ingesting information about the candidates and the races.

Gas prices at the pump are information. So is a carefully produced TV segment.

"Much of the info voters receive is partisan in nature: Targeted ads, mailers, text messages. Some of the info they find online is murky: Local news sites that may or may not have a political agenda, chatbots that may or may not share misleading answers.

"A relatively small portion of the info stems from impartial news sources. I felt so nourished yesterday reading two long-form articles about the congressional race where I live, since that type of coverage is so rare. Then I felt frustrated, since most of my neighbors don’t even know those articles exist.

“One of the things we ask about in the focus groups all the time is: Where do people get their information? And it is unsatisfying now,” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark said on today’s new episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.”

“It used to be that people would be pretty clear,” she said. “They’d be like: I watch Fox News. Or: I watch CNN. I read this newspaper. I read The New York Times. Or: I read my local newspaper. The majority of people would often say that they watch their local news.”

“But now,” she said, “what people mostly say is: I don’t know where I saw that. They’re scrolling. They’ve got their favorite cooking influencer, or they’re scrolling on Instagram or TikTok — an algorithm-driven information environment where they mostly want basketball or sports. But then there’s Stephen A. Smith talking about politics.”

"When info, or a hot take, or an attack ad just washes over a voter for a second or two at a time, it’s processed differently. Longwell invoked the truism that “politics is downstream from culture” and suggested it’s out of date.

“I think, increasingly, the overlap between politics and culture combines into something that is a deeply nonpolitical-science term, which we would call a vibe,” she said. “And that vibe is what a lot of the low-information voters are getting. Something that washes over them, that is algorithmically injected into the cultural things that they imbibe.”