If you are a frequent user YouTube, there is likely chance you’ve heard of Philip DeFranco. He recently he hit 5 million subscribers on his main channel, featuring his monday through thursday news show coined “The Philip DeFranco Show.” The segment usually runs 10 minutes long. If you hate biased mainstream media, then I recommend you pay DeFranco’s channel a visit. If you have not then I definitely think he is worth checking for anyone who hates that most mainstream media outlets are biased.

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Though DeFranco chimes in from time to time, his show’s strongest asset is its dedication to presenting both sides of every story, and its emphasis on encouraging constructive conversation with his fan base. One of the main things that makes his show great is that although usually he does share his opinions on the stories he talks about he always makes a point to present both side of every story and encourage constructive conversation within his fan base. His approach to news presentation seems provides a sense of raw honesty, a commitment to objectivity and facts, and a fair amount of explanation. DeFrance covers a broad spectrum of news, from analysing serious topics, like the election, to reporting on ridiculous, lighthearted content,like the twitter feuds between celebrities, and video games. In a star feature of his channel, “Today in Awesome,” he quickly explains five recent small news stories, or YouTube creators.

I have been watching DeFranco for 4 or 5 years (I think) but truthfully, keeping track becomes difficult; his Youtube presence has been a constant variable in most of my adult life. When I started watching, his show was vastly different; it focused more on his opinion, and often included segments or stories he admitted were there to retain more views. One such segment he featured was called “Lovely Lady of the Day” where he would occasionally talk about a instagram model or celebrity mainly for the purpose of putting them in the thumbnail but he has not had that for over year. Though controversial, I've never taken issue with this, because Youtube is his job. In order to earn a living, he needs people to watch he has always been honest about his opinions, and faithful to the facts he cites. But most admirably, and the reason I look up to him, lies in his commitment to get news stories right, especially because in recent years many long running and generally trustworthy news organizations have published stories that have not been completely accurate. However, this does sometimes mean he refrains from breaking news, taking a day or two to address it at length in a video. Even so, this does not bother me, because I know that I can count on him to always have the facts straight.

But DeFranco’s reach doesn’t stop there.In addition tohis main channel with 5 million subscribers, he also runs two other channels, one of which features behind-the-scenes vlogs of him,his family, and the team behind the production of “The Philip DeFranco Show.” He also started (and eventually sold) two other news channels: “SourceFed” & “SourceFedNerd.” He is more than just a YouTuber: he helps dismantle the stereotype that YouTube is just a place for video game ‘let’s plays,’ and dumb cat videos. Watching his videos has always ensured I feel well informed, and has even inspired my choice to major in Journalism at The University Of Oregon. One day, I hope that I can have an impact on another person's life as much as he has had on mine.