Why I Trust Creators Before the News | The Shift in Trust

I’ve noticed something about the way I get information now. When something happens, I don’t open a news app, search for an article, or wait for a headline.

I check social media to see who’s talking about it: a video, a story, a quick breakdown, someone explaining it in real time while it’s still unfolding. And more often, I trust that before I trust anything else.

It’s not that journalism disappeared. It’s still there, verifying, contextualizing, trying to get it right. But it doesn’t feel like the first place information lives anymore. Creators got there first, and once you’ve already seen something, reacted to it, and formed an opinion, it’s hard to go back and unsee it just because a more polished version shows up later.

I follow people like Cole Bennett, who turns Canadian politics into something people actually stop scrolling for; Aaron Parnas, whose rapid-fire updates can make a breaking political story feel understandable before most outlets have finished writing the headline; Max Tkachenko, who brings the reality of life in Kyiv into your feed with a level of immediacy that traditional coverage rarely captures; and Jay Schnell, whose commentary cuts through complexity and makes people feel like they’re part of the conversation instead of being talked at.

Watching creators like these, it’s easy to understand why so many people turn to them first. They don’t just deliver information. They make you feel close to it.

That’s the shift. Not just in where information comes from, but in who we believe. Trust used to be attached to institutions. Now it’s attached to individuals.

Creators don’t feel like media. They feel like people. You see their face, hear their voice, watch their reactions, and follow their lives over months or years. The relationship feels personal, even if it’s one-sided. Over time, familiarity starts to feel like trust.

Mainstream media works differently. It presents information through organizations, not personalities. Stories pass through editors, standards, and layers of verification before reaching an audience. The process is designed to reduce bias and improve accuracy, but it also creates distance. You rarely know the people behind the reporting. You know the brand.

Creators remove that distance. They speak directly to you. They share opinions alongside facts. They show uncertainty, emotion, and real-time reactions. Whether they’re discussing politics, world events, or everyday life, the experience feels less like receiving information and more like hearing from someone you know.

And that feeling matters.

When someone has been part of your daily feed for years, you begin to trust their judgment beyond the reason you followed them in the first place. A creator who built an audience through gaming, fitness, or lifestyle content can suddenly become a source for news, politics, or current events because trust transfers across topics. The audience isn’t evaluating credentials in that moment. They’re relying on familiarity.

Traditional journalism was built around the assumption that people will naturally trust the information they’re unloading. The goal was never to make reporters feel relatable. It was to make information reliable. Reporters gather evidence, editors verify claims, and multiple people challenge the story before it’s published. The friction can feel slow and impersonal, but that’s exactly what the system is designed to do.

Creators operate under different incentives. Their value comes from immediacy, connection, and engagement. They don’t just report events. They interpret them in real time. Audiences experience the event and the explanation simultaneously.

That speed and transparency changes how trust works and that is what they remember. By the time a more polished and edited picture emerges, many have already formed an opinion.

For me, seeing someone’s face, hearing their uncertainty, and watching them work through events feels more honest than receiving a finished story. The result is a growing tension between what feels trustworthy and what has been carefully verified.

I can feel that tension when I scroll. I know a 60-second video can’t capture every detail. I know context takes time and verification takes work. Yet I still find myself absorbing the interpretation before the facts are fully settled. The creator feels familiar, and familiarity lowers skepticism.

It’s not that creators replaced journalists. It’s that they replaced the role institutions once played in earning our trust. We used to trust the process. Now we trust the person.

And once that happens, the challenge isn’t just figuring out what’s true. It’s recognizing how much of what feels true is coming from who we already believe.

~smy