Photo of NYC’s premier festival, Electric Zoo, taken by Henry Popovic 2016

The future of journalism is not only something that will be determined by journalists, editors, and others in the business, but also consumers of news and media. It is important for the public to recognize that in order to be responsible in their knowledge and consumption of media, they need to develop a certain sense of literacy.

We as a society also have a right to know about things. We also have a right to speak our minds and opinions and share in the larger conversation on these issues, and ultimately, mediums should be constructed to allow for such a dialogue to occur.

More and more in recent years (and at least as far back as the last decade), journalism has been moving online and onto screens, whether it be television, our phones, or our computers. In a lot of cases, people seem unwilling to put in any work to make sure what they're reading and watching online is actually accurate. People also often seem to just want to look for information that confirms their own biases. It takes effort to gain news literacy skills, and a lot of us don’t seem to want to put in that effort. A simple internet search, however, can lead us to tools to help improve our media literacy, such as the News Literacy Project, which is a non-partisan nonprofit that supplies resources to help people with detecting misinformation, as well as navigation in the new world of AI, which has become a more recent development in the past few years.

One of my personal beats, music with a specific focus on the EDM community, has been almost exclusively reported on in the world of online journalism, as it is a scene that started gaining significant traction around 2010 and has been growing larger with each passing year. Most news on EDM is supplied by blogs, many of which are unverified but some have gained a reputation for legitimacy. Some bigger publications include Billboard and Rolling Stone, but while they do report on certain EDM news, they are more dedicated to music in general and therefore do not fully keep up with the entire scope of the EDM world (additionally, Rolling Stone has a limit to what content on it can be read without a paid subscription, which many casual readers are unlikely to want to pay for).

It is easier to have faith in journalism done by such legitimate sources, but when it comes to the blogs and smaller publications, it can be more difficult to figure out what and who can be trusted. Some EDM blogs are more reliable and reputable than others, and it is important for readers and consumers to recognize that. Major EDM blogs mainly serve people coming to find new artists, discuss new music from artists who mainly also offer music downloads, and also feature new events and concerts. Three of the more established blogs within EDM news are YourEDM, EDM.com, and Dancing Astronaut. I personally know some people who have done work for these blogs, particularly YourEDM, and the editorial process is generally legitimate, but there are some concerns. Many of the writers for these blogs are unpaid, and additionally, competition between these blogs can make writers more focused on breaking a story first than getting all the facts right. There are a few things that can be done to maintain a good reputation for news. First, it is necessary to have an established editing staff. Also, if not all the information for a story is available, that should be made known, and the story should be continually updated as more information becomes available, demonstrating integrity and humility. Blogs that imply they already have all the information when it is clear they don’t immediately makes me hesitant to take them at their word.

People tend to debate more intensely when controversial or sensitive topics are brought up, such as alleged cases of sexual assault/harassment or even just a hot take on an album or song or artist that the general public is likely to disagree with. When allegations came out in 2021 that hugely popular EDM artist Bassnectar was accused of sexually assaulting underage girls, I remember seeing a lot of talk about it on social media. YourEDM reported on it, as did EDM.com, but it was a big enough story that Rolling Stone and Billboard did articles on it as well, and over the past year, the artist has been trying to stage a comeback that has led to mixed responses.

There are other responsibilities that readers should have when consuming EDM news. For example, if a story sounds interesting but is only published on a single smaller blog or outlet, then it may not be legitimate, and it is our responsibility to recognize that. For those looking for news about new artists, they should first get a sense of what subgenre an artist is within the umbrella of EDM, because there are so many now that it's important to have some distinction of where the artist fits into. This can also be applied to almost any subject. It's our responsibility to have some knowledge of the context of the issue we're reading about. In doing so, we allow ourselves the ability to not necessarily be influenced by biased articles and to be able to take any article with a grain of salt and still potentially learn from it even if we don't fully agree with the perspective. We have to do our own research but we also must expect the publication to do their research, and even if they have a bias they should be able to back it up with facts so that we can see it as credible even if we disagree. It is also our responsibility to not read the blogs that are not doing the research. Ultimately, the future of journalism will likely depend on society’s decision to maintain responsibility.