The Scoop: The chaotic web of social media journalism as seen in one California county

Stanislaus County is home to 500,000 residents in California’s Central Valley. Like most communities across the country, traditional media has receded from this rural area, leaving inhabitants to cobble together their own news sources as best they can.

The results can lead to misinformation — and even armed confrontation.

An in-depth report from the New York Times examines how a powerful web of alternative media — including Facebook groups and fringe newspapers like the Epoch Times — has stepped in to fill an information vacuum.

For instance, misinformation spread in one group (All Things Oakdale, a town of about 20,000 in Stanislaus County) led to the arrival of gun-toting militia members expecting Black Lives protesters arriving from the Bay Area in 2020. There were no protestors, but the militiamen were certainly real.

In the wake of this incident, All Things Oakdale instituted a ban on political discussion and began more rigorous moderation. But group members, chafing under what they saw as censorship, started creating their own groups with their own rules, splintering the media environment further.

These groups became important — Stanislaus News, which boasts 75,000 members, has become an important communications outlet for the Modesto Police Department, which posts there daily. But even here, there is controversy, as some members claim they have been banned for questioning official police investigations.

While several small newspapers continue to operate in the county, they can’t compete with the large Facebook groups — and don’t try.

“I still feel like some people go to us, whether it’s our website or our newspaper, for a more trusted news,” Hank Vander Veen, publisher of The Oakdale Leader, told the Times.

The Epoch Times, a paper affiliated with the Falun Gong religious group, has also gained popularity through simply sending free copies to local merchants, which customers can pick up and browse for free. The paper, which the Times describes as anti-China and right-leaning, has recently added California-specific news.

It all adds up to a microcosm of the American media environment, particularly in non-urban areas: decentralized, fractured and largely out of the hands of professional, traditional journalists.

Why it matters: Local news matters to people. They need and want to know what’s happening in their communities. And as legacy media became increasingly unable to provide that information, civilians stepped in. But they all bring their own priorities, quirks, biases and moderation styles to bear.

For media relations professionals, this all creates both opportunity and peril. These groups can be directly seeded with messages and information for hyperlocal audiences — but choosing one group over the other could cause political difficulties. PR professionals seeking to interact with these groups need to carefully read the rules, as some allow business promotion or information, and some do not. They need to understand the general culture and leanings of these groups to ensure they’re sharing information responsibly and in a way that will make their audiences most receptive.

These are also groups that need to be carefully monitored for misinformation. Whether it’s rumors about the environmental impact of a new development or just the wrong date for a new store opening, proactive monitoring of these groups can be time-consuming (closed groups won’t show up in your media monitoring software) but ultimately rewarding, either in spreading your message or halting harmful ones.

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Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.