“What is news?” asked American Professor Steven Reiner from Stony Brook University at Radio Days Ireland.

“Traditional media used to decide what is important, an irrelevant idea today can travel at lightening speed through social media.”

“Social media provides a toxic stew for our brains as we’re manipulated into buying and believing what we see from like minded people,” said Professor Reiner.

In the US, podcast rate of growth is larger than radio but radio listenership has remained stable.

The Joe Rogan Experience is an example of one the most listened to podcasts. It has 11 million listeners per episode. It has 71% male listeners, 19.4 million subscribers on YouTube, 19.7 million on Instagram and 15 million on X.

He quotes Variety, “Joe Rogan and the Fifth Estate: How the podcaster and a group of cable news exiles became more powerful than traditional media.”

In contrast NPR is the only national radio service left as others have been cut back by Republican governments. It is also under attack. Recently executives were berated for “producing scandalous left leaning content” by the current government.

Podcasts are mostly not a conveyer of news and information (only about 12%) as people listen mostly for entertainment. There are no news services associated with news podcasts. Currently Professor Reiner isn’t aware of a podcast that will give a broad view of information.

Professor Reiner lists the following as promising factors of podcasts:

1. NPR produces more than 170 podcasts and is growing. Podcasts produce a greater amount of revenue than conventional programming.
2. U.S. audience has increased five fold in the past ten years, bringing in new younger audiences.
3. There are more than 116 million listeners monthly.

Professor Reiner lists the following as the perils of podcasting:

1. Ideal tool for injecting false information
2. Spoken word content not easily or affordably analysed
3. No instant audience corrective feedback
4. Understudied by disinformation experts

Professor Reiner says, “Disinformation in the U.S. creates a perfect storm as over half of adults receive news from social media and distrust of news media is at an all time high (70% have little trust in media).”

“No one knows what works against against disinformation though there’s been limited success with fact checks, warning labels, prebunking and media literacy. People need more effective media education about checking sources and counterfeit websites,” said Professor Reiner.

Professor Reiner listed the following ways to protect news into the future:

1. Employ first rate journalists
2. Involve the public for news gathering
3. Transparency, allow consumers to understand the news gathering process.
4. Journalists need the ‘without fear or favour’ approach in their training.
5. Train the young people  showing interest in journalism.

“Journalists need to be more observant of definitions of objectivity, you want to bring passion to a story but it needs to be covered thoroughly even if you have a stand,” said Professor Reiner.