“When influencers took those seats at conventions, maybe it was a wake-up call. Maybe this was the wake-up call everybody needed,” said Samantha Ragland, vice president of journalism programs at the American Press Institute.
Ragland was talking about the fact that both the Democratic and Republican conventions gave prime access to non-traditional news media during the 2024 presidential election. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns gave press passes and exclusive interviews to popular podcasters and social media creators to broaden their reach. While it connected with audiences, it caused a lot of consternation in traditional journalism circles.
“It makes people incredibly nervous, given the digital world that we’re in. And so now, post-election, there are opportunities for newsrooms to think even more about what we can do,” said Ragland. She said the approaches creators and influencers use to reach audiences have lessons for newsrooms that could help them connect or reconnect with their community.
Recent studies show more people are turning to independent creators, journalists and influencers on platforms like YouTube, Substack and TikTok for news and information. A recent Pew survey found that 37% of 18-29 year olds and 26% of 30-49 year olds in the U.S. say they regularly get news from social media influencers. This comes along with surveys about diminishing trust in media, reduced readership and record newsroom closures in the last decade.
Some influencers/creators capturing attention do not call themselves journalists, and some are partisan advocates. But others, like independent investigative journalist Marisa Kabas, who runs “The Handbasket” on Beehiiv, regularly break news, including the recent scoop about the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget memo attempting to freeze all U.S. government grants and loans. Kabas and others like V Spehar, the creator of the popular TikTok series “Under the Desk,” which has over 3 million followers, both call themselves journalists, seek to create a close relationship with their audience, and are explicit about their reporting processes and ethics.
A steady stream of former corporate news heavyweights has joined the shift toward independent creator journalism. High-profile journalists like Jim Acosta, formerly of CNN, along with Paul Krugman and Bari Weiss — both formerly of The New York Times — are on Substack building their own communities to gain editorial freedom and take direct control of their revenue models.
Finding a way forward
While many people have made vast fortunes as influencers in journalism, the word makes people pretty uncomfortable, said Liz Kelly Nelson, the founder of “Project C,” a Beehiiv newsletter dedicated to creator journalism. “I think we need to have a lot more understanding about what a journalism creator is versus an influencer. Influencer is an imperfect term for describing what people like V Sherap are doing. Influencer is a marketing term. Why are we, as journalists, promulgating that to describe the kind of work we do? I’m trying to address this to bridge these worlds,” she said.
Nelson is an accomplished journalist who has helped some of the most prominent news organizations innovate over the last few decades. She started at AOL and moved up the ranks at Gannett to launch USA TODAY’s podcast, “The City.” She then went to Vox as vice president, overseeing its award-winning podcasts.
She recently wrote a post on her newsletter titled “Who gets to be called a journalist in 2025?” with the sub-head “Why the shift from legacy media to creator-led platforms isn’t the end of journalism — but a new beginning” that dug into the discomfort facing the intersecting industries. She wrote, “...the fear that an industry built on decades of expertise could simply vanish. With unending newsroom layoffs, it’s not hard to see why. It’s the unsettling realization that values like ‘tradition,’ ‘training’ and ‘credibility’ might no longer carry the weight they once did. (Spoiler: They still do. Trust is just being earned differently.)“
Nelson collaborates with Ragland and Trusting News to try to help newsrooms better engage in these new ways of connecting with audiences and find ways to help creator journalists fortify their work to build trust in these new models. Nelson said she sees a growing field where more organizations will provide backend services to independent journalists — helping with the business side, insurance and editorial support.
“Some of them do have editors on staff; others don’t. But many do peer-to-peer editing or have advisers who act as a second set of eyes.” Nelson said she does editing for some creators. “No one wants to get caught out. They have the same fears as other journalists.”
Nelson said she left corporate life to go out on her own like other creators because she wanted more freedom in her schedule along with creative and editorial control. She said she was also motivated by her son. “My son is 14, and he gets a lot of his news and information from social media. I’ve worked with him to help him look for signs of solid sourcing. But there’s a whole media literacy aspect I’m focused on as well. This way of getting news is not going away. We have to help make it better.”
Learning from creators and connecting with audiences
As the media landscape continues to change, collaboration between traditional journalists and content creators is emerging as a way forward. Traditional outlets can learn from influencers’ audience engagement strategies, while creators can benefit from established journalistic practices.
API has been studying how local newsrooms can work with influencers to deepen community engagement as part of a partnership with the Knight Election Lab. “We are most interested in how local relationships can continue to move newsrooms away from transactional touch points and toward transformational and relational touch points with their communities,” said Ragland.
Six local newsrooms participated — PublicSource in Pennsylvania, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, THE CITY in New York, WSOC-TV in North Carolina, the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Factchequeado, a national Spanish-language news outlet — collaborating with influencers, or as Ragland prefers to call them, “trusted messengers,” to expand and deepen their election coverage. API is publishing tips and lessons in a guide from what they learned in their four-month experiment.
“We don’t want our partners to think that influencers are out of reach, because influencer is oftentimes connected to this mega platform of celebrities,” explained Ragland. “Local news organizations that think about audience and community engagement partner and collaborate with influencers, what we call trusted messengers in the community. [It] could be your local high school janitor or your little league football coach. We’re really pushing the local news industry toward finding value and alignment, partnership and collaboration with people who are committed to your community the same way you are. There should be an alignment of values.”
Ragland — who previously worked helping local newsrooms like The Palm Beach Post and other USA TODAY Network publications build out their digital and social journalism — said: “We’ve seen this before when newsrooms were resistant to new ways of reaching audiences. This is a chance to make deeper connections. It’s not just partnering with influencers or trusted messengers; newsrooms should look to the young people in their newsrooms. They want to do this work, but newsrooms have to prepare for it and give support and resources to those doing it. It can’t be an add-on.”
Adriana Lacy, who has spent more than a decade working in audience engagement including working at The New York Times and Axios, now heads up her own consulting agency to help newsrooms adopt the best practices of creator journalism. She said she’s heard news leaders’ fears about working with high-powered influencers who aren’t trained in journalism. “I come from a journalism background, so I understand the concerns and ethics. If a newsroom partners with a great influencer and then the next day, they’re talking about how awful Trump is, there’s a worry. That’s one of the biggest fears.”
Lacy said many influencers are highly professional and are used to contract negotiations. She advises newsrooms who want to hire an influencer to review expectations thoughtfully and to outline deliverables and restrictions in contracts. She also often trains newsrooms on creating social media content that connects with younger audiences or creates videos for them.
Lacy explained that the ease of making them on the phone helps lower the barrier to entry for smaller outlets, but there are still considerations to bear in mind. “A lot of people are thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is the key to young audiences. They’ll read all our articles on the site because we made a video,’” said Lacy. “That’s not happening most of the time. People are watching the video on TikTok. That’s all they’re doing. They’re not going to your site; they’re not reading it. So, make sure you are clear on the end goals, and it will meet expectations.”
A 2023 Goldman Sachs report said the current global worth of creator media is $250 billion. It estimates the value will nearly double to $480 billion by 2027.
The scale and impact of this on journalism and communities keep Liz Kelly Nelson motivated. She said, “After working in journalism for 30 years, I’m somehow an optimist and a big believer in collaboration. This is the time for the journalism community to open our hearts and be collaborative, not to close ranks. Because it will not only be helpful to those creator journalists, but it’s actually going to mean the survival of what we do and care about.”
Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor, and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com.
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