As a student journalist, I take great pride in the talent and dedication of my fellow Trapeze staffers, who spend weeks gathering compelling material and shaping it into dynamic, impactful stories. So our staff was excited when a Trapeze story was picked up by NewsBreak, described by Reuters as “the most downloaded local news app in the United States.”
“HBCUs offer history, community, support,” a reported essay by our staffer Sydney Neschis, was featured as part of the site’s content. However, on closer examination, this was not the compliment it first appeared to be. That’s because sites like NewsBreak devalue local journalism.
NewsBreak, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., gets its content through licensing agreements with legitimate news organizations and by scanning the internet for free news that it publishes without vetting or permissions
(that’s what happened to Neschis). Some articles are written or rewritten with artificial intelligence, and no human editor reviews information before publishing it.
Reuters reports that “in at least 40 instances since 2021, the app’s use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve, with Newsbreak publishing erroneous stories.” One of those was about a school shooting in New Jersey last December–a story that was eventually revealed to be completely made up.
These unethical practices diminish the power of news to provide information truthfully and accurately. It also competes with real local news distributors, which rely on revenue that comes from advertisements, subscriptions and readership to operate. Sites like News- break endlessly take from communities without giving anything back, undermining the goals of those they exploit—news outlets that work to serve and uplift communities every day.
Journalism is an exciting and adventurous endeavor that comes with a lot of responsibilities. Writers–like Neschis and I–have a passion for exploring and communicating events in our world through language and genuine interactions with people around us.
Companies like Newsbreak put virality over originality. The irony is that local journalism, the foundation of truly informed communities, is diminished due to NewsBreak’s emphasis on quantity over quality. That fact drives misinformation in the media.
I always remember my grandpa cracking open the Tribune every morning, diving into its pages with unbreakable focus. He’d move from world news to the opinion section, completely fascinated with its contents. For him, the newspaper wasn’t just for information, it was a trusted gateway to the world.
Today, people turn to aggregators or social media feeds where misinformation runs unchecked. These platforms don’t offer local journalism’s steady, fact-based reporting, and instead perpetuate sensationalism and purposely invite their viewers to believe half-truths.
While my grandfather isn’t here anymore, I know that he’d be ticked off by this superficial manipulation of the news that leaves me and younger generations vulnerable to misleading ideas and coverage. At the end of the day, all these sites care about are clicks. They could care less about knowledge.
What should you, the readers, take away from this? Our world is perpetuat- ing misinformation on an extreme scale, now more than ever. As students continue to learn and grow, trusting sources rooted in local news remains a safe way to consume information. Other than providing reliable news, local journalism– real local journalism– fosters connection and belonging, supporting the communities we’ve grown up in our entire lives.
So read Trapeze. Read our local publications, Oak Leaves and Wednesday Journal. Even when they aren’t perfect, they’re human–which is more than NewsBreak can claim.
