TikTok Boom!  

Claire Ricks likes to keep up with current events. She follows mainstream news websites and considers herself an avid newspaper reader. The 29-year-old had mostly regarded social media as a place for memes and cute animal videos until this spring, when she helped study a platform an increasing number of people are turning to for news: TikTok.

Ricks, a student at the Harvard Extension School, was assisting with a research project developed by Ben Reininga, one of this piece’s co-authors. Both of us (Ben and Ryan Y. Kellett) have just finished a year at Harvard as joint fellows of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. We each spent our time studying the online creator space — specifically those labeled creator journalists or news influencers — to explore what lessons their work might hold for the wider media industry. 

Watching hundreds of videos on TikTok as part of the project, Ricks found informative vignettes of student protesters being detained for opposing the war in Gaza. She viewed helpful explainers on the complexities of global tariffs. She saw numerous takes on the day’s news, delivered by people speaking directly into their phone cameras while sitting in their cars. Overall, the experience left her “quite surprised” by how engaging the content was.

“When you’re reading a traditional news article, you realize you’re often actually just skimming,” Ricks said. “Watching these videos … I actually felt like I was more informed. The good ones provide tons of sources and citations, but it still feels like having a friend break it down for you.”

That formula — making news seem as if it’s coming from a trusted friend, or at least a trusted source — is not a new concept in journalism. But where people go to find it has changed dramatically, shaking up the media landscape in profound ways. 

For the first time, more Americans get their news directly from social media than from any other source, according to the 2025 Digital News Report from Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), which shows social and video networks overtaking both news websites and television news in the U.S. and many parts of the world. 

Before coming to Harvard for our fellowships, we had each spent years witnessing shifts in news consumption patterns. In leadership roles at both traditional and digital outlets, we watched legacy media struggle with faltering business models, shrinking audiences, and declining trust while the social media creator space expanded from a niche segment of the news industry into an increasingly powerful force. 

A growing ‘alternative media environment’ 

Critics point out the very real dangers of the media influencer sphere: how algorithms can reward sensationalism, how having fewer editorial gatekeepers can make it easier for false or low-quality information to propagate. But there are compelling reasons for journalists and news organizations to try to establish a foothold on these platforms. Chief among them: they are where growing numbers of people get their information. 

“It has never been more urgent for journalists to amplify fact-based information,” said Sophia Smith Galer, a U.K.-based journalist and video creator who worked at the BBC and did a stint at Vice World News before becoming a solo creator.

“We will fail news audiences if we stick to assuming a decent video strategy is to just pump out more content on news brand accounts,” Smith Galer added. “We have to get on there as individuals if we really want to engage with the attention economy.” 

Unlike those who view social media as a death blow to traditional journalism, we see causes for optimism. Ryan regards a rising generation of creator journalists as bringing a “founder’s mindset” and entrepreneurial energy to a beleaguered industry. Ben’s research has found that many news influencers produce high-quality work, use innovative storytelling techniques, and reach younger audiences who — contrary to what’s sometimes said — are interested in news. 

Neither of us would advocate for these mediums to replace traditional forms of journalism. But we urge news organizations to lean into — rather than be slow to adapt or continue to resist — creating news content on these platforms as an integral part of a broader long-term sustainability strategy. 

Whether or not traditional news outlets choose to engage, the changing way people consume information and the continuing migration toward short-form visual mediums is having an impact. The RISJ report found that “an accelerating shift towards consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of ‘institutional journalism’ and supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers.” 

A diverse ecosystem of news content creators

The “fragmented alternative media environment” the RISJ report describes encompasses different kinds of news content creators and influencers. It includes those who currently or previously worked for news organizations, and those with no journalism background. Some news creators have left legacy newsroom jobs; others are early-career digital natives who have shunned entry-level newsroom jobs in favor of going it alone in order to retain editorial, creative, and financial control of their work.

An analysis by the Pew Research Center of news influencers in the U.S. — defined as individuals with at least 100,000 followers “who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media” — also includes people like conservative podcaster Joe Rogan. He represents an influential category of non-journalists who nevertheless serve as many people’s main source of news, although filtered through commentary and opinion. Rogan and others enjoy the kind of access to people in power — including Donald Trump, a heavy user of social media who has elevated the influence and access of content creators — once reserved for the traditional news media. The Pew study found that many U.S. news influencers have a profile similar to Rogan’s: a majority are men who lean Republican or conservative.

The influencer formula 

Our own studies this year focused less on the politics and pitfalls of the news influencer phenomenon and more on the mechanics of how news content creators practice their craft and what lessons the media industry might learn from them. Specifically, we’ve delved into how viewers engage with news creator content, and how such content is succeeding where traditional media continues to flounder: in building trust, expanding audiences, and engaging repeat consumers.

In both of our research projects, we found that successful news-focused videos on social media boast many of the same features that make other types of influencer videos gain viewers or go viral. Using new tools offered by the platforms, news content creators have developed innovative ways to get audiences interested in all types of stories, including hard-hitting news. 

To explore what makes news content on social media “overperform,” Ben picked a breaking news event and isolated the specific elements that made certain versions of the story resonate more with viewers. He chose the March arrest by immigration authorities of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident who was detained in New York City as part of a Trump-ordered crackdown on students participating in campus protests against the war in Gaza. 

Ben and Claire Ricks combed through hundreds of reports on TikTok about Khalil’s case, sorting them into various categories and tagging them according to characteristics such as video style, direct address to camera, background or filming space, tone of voice, and word choice. Using formulas to analyze how well the videos performed, Ben found that many of the most successful ones offered direct antidotes to the criticisms people have of traditional news media. 

He broke down those findings into sets of contrasting adjectives describing how followers of news influencers feel about legacy media versus how they feel about news content on social platforms: 

Elite vs.intimate 

Biased vs.transparent 

Too complex vs. simple and open 

Depressing vs. playful

Irrelevant vs. diverse and “like you”

While Ben studied how creators reach audiences and what kind of content most resonates, Ryan focused on equipping journalists with tools and skills to enter the creator space. He spent the year developing a curriculum aimed at those transitioning “from traditional newsrooms to creator-dom” and now co-runs “Going Solo” workshops to help journalists amplify their work on social media. 

Among the lessons: successful social media content creators feel like a close friend. Their tone and style give a sense that you can ask them anything. You may catch glimpses of their personal lives and feel you can relate — the details they share are often relevant to the story, and also help create what feels like a personal connection with the viewer.

“People trust me because they see me as one of them, and I am,” said Carlos Eduardo Espina, one of the most-viewed news creators on TikTok. “I’m using language that people understand. It’s colloquial. I present as very down-to-earth and informal; I don’t show up in a suit. People think: ‘This guy is part of the community and talking about issues he cares about.’ I’m just being who I am.” 

Espina, who has no formal journalistic training, reaches more than 15 million followers across platforms with Spanish-language dispatches focused on immigration, as well as with community updates and tidbits from his personal life. The 26-year-old, who is originally from Uruguay, said he started making videos about his U.S. citizenship process from his home in Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

While Espina does not call himself a journalist — though he has broken news — he produces content using what he describes as a hybrid reporting process that involves marshaling information from both mainstream media and a growing list of sources he’s cultivated. 

“What I hope is that people see me as a reliable source of news,” he said. “I don’t see my role as in competition with traditional media. There’s this narrative of creators versus traditional outlets, but we’re all part of the same ecosystem.” 

Another hallmark of successful news content creators is that they follow the cadence, editing style, and language of the platform they’re posting on, often making reference to an app’s inside jokes or viral memes. They’ll use the greenscreen feature on TikTok or Instagram Reels, for example, to superimpose a messy cutout image of themselves over a video clip they’re discussing — output that is intentionally less polished than television news. 

A popular tactic, for example, is to post videos from bedrooms or cars (easy, quiet places to capture clean audio), with the creator wearing regular clothes and speaking in a casual, candid style that addresses the audience as a peer, in direct-to-camera speech. Other successful news influencers use props or have memorable visual or verbal signatures or sign-offs to make their videos stand out. 

One of the top news creators on TikTok, V Spehar, often reports from under a desk on the aptly named show “@Underthedesknews.” Spehar usually starts a video with a conversational greeting like “Hey, y’all, it’s Tuesday and here’s what’s happening,” and throws in extra tidbits for loyal followers, who are affectionately referred to as “dust bunnies.” Despite the casual approach, the topics can be serious. A recent set of videos featured in-depth reporting on the clashes between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and protesters in Los Angeles; another featured a message from U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar after the politically motivated assasination in mid-June of her friend Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state lawmaker.

Top news content creators also engage directly with their audiences, often using viewer comments as prompts for follow-up videos. This enhances the feeling that the news is being delivered by “someone like me,” and that the journalist is directly accessible. That might run counter to mainstream media norms, but it resonates deeply with a younger generation of news consumers.

These techniques stand in sharp contrast to news organizations whose social media strategy often consists of redistributing TV broadcast clips or using snippets of video over a text story in an attempt to drive viewers back to the organization’s homepage. 

The shifting attention paradigm 

The average adult worldwide spends more than two hours daily on social media platforms, according to consumer research firm GWI, and they spend about 15% more time watching online video than they do watching television, the longtime media champ.

Meanwhile, per capita newspaper circulation peaked more than 70 years ago in the United States, and the revenues of most local newsrooms have been collapsing for decades. 

By contrast, the creator economy, already worth more than $250 billion a year, according to Goldman Sachs, is projected to nearly double by 2027. Although the vast majority of social media content creators are not journalists — platforms are filled with beauty tips, celebrity gossip, and dance trends — news content creators follow a similar formula for monetizing their output: a mix of subscriptions, sponsorships, donations, and merchandise sales. The most successful news influencers can earn money in the seven and eight figures, amounts that were once the domain of the biggest star news anchors. And advertisers are paying attention: WPP Media, the world’s largest ad agency, projects that social media platforms will overtake traditional media in ad revenue this year.

Individual creators on social media can reach audiences that rival those of their mass-media predecessors. Smith Galer, for example, has more than half a million followers on her primary platform, TikTok, an estimated 75% of whom are under the age of 34.

Despite this, resistance to these platforms, or at least a tendency not to take them seriously, remains in many corners of the news industry.

At a recent talk Ben gave in Boston outlining behavioral shifts in news consumption, an attendee made the type of comment he’s grown accustomed to hearing from legacy news executives: “So you’re saying people are getting dumber, and you think that’s great?” 

Ben pushes back on this notion. As the former head of editorial at Snapchat, a messaging app that allows users to share photos and videos, he frequently conducted polls among Snapchat’s estimated 450 million daily users — the majority in their teens and 20s — and found they regularly expressed a high interest in news and wanted to see more of it on the platform.

“It was my job to go out and get that news from the folks who make it best: traditional news providers doing great journalism,” Ben said, ticking off a roster of established media companies Snapchat partnered with, including The Washington Post and NBC News. Despite these successful partnerships, there was still a persistent industry trope regarding social media that Ben summed up as: “Snap and platforms like them are silly and the young people who use them are vapid; we’re cooking up nutritious meals and they only want cake.” 

He came to view this disconnect as a broken supply-and-demand relationship: young Snapchat users said they wanted news, yet some producers of quality journalism continued to insist the demographic didn’t care about news or was too difficult to reach. 

Both of us (Ben and Ryan) have encountered a similar lack of urgency among many legacy news outlets to engage with these platforms or to grasp the existential threat of this shifting attention paradigm, while content creators like Smith Galer seem to understand it instinctively: “Rather than expecting my audience to find my journalism,” she said, “I work really hard to make sure that my journalism finds them.” 

A bright spot in a shrinking industry

News organizations that spent decades and vast resources on “web-first journalism” in hopes of driving traffic to their websites are starting to see on-platform work in the social media universe supplant their content. In a grim irony, a number of news influencers take information from traditional outlets and repackage it for their audiences, often without attribution, which critics say effectively leaves the legwork and cost of original reporting to be borne by others. 

But supporters of news content creators point out that legacy media outlets, such as cable news, are often guilty of the same thing, and creators who break stories on social media are not always credited when a story goes viral. 

Liz Kelly Nelson, who runs Project C, an organization “for journalists navigating the independent creator economy,” said the lack of clear or accepted guidelines in the nascent universe of news content creators — which she and others are hoping to develop — is not a reason to dismiss it wholesale. 

“What is the ultimate goal of the original reporting that these [traditional] news sites are doing?” she asked. “Is it to have an impact and reach a scaled audience? And if it is, then maybe it’s a good thing.” 

Trying to catch up to the new reality, some legacy outlets are experimenting with various approaches, although figuring out a smart way to enter the creator space and make money from it remains a challenge. 

In a first for the industry, The Washington Post’s in-house social media news creator, journalist Dave Jorgensen, struck a deal with his employer to host a new YouTube series directly on his own channel instead of the channel run by The Post. While the distinction might be lost on outsiders, it represents a new frontier in the battle over who owns the relationship with an audience that a reporter has developed while working for a well-known institution — in this case Jorgensen, who has earned a personal following in part because of The Washington Post’s institutional imprimatur.

News influencers who work hard to cultivate large social media audiences now view their follower counts as bargaining chips that are just as valuable as, or even more important than, assets like years of work experience.

“I just turned down a job this week,” said Jackson Gosnell, a 21-year-old college student and news creator from Greenville, South Carolina, when we spoke to him this spring. The television station that had extended an offer, Gosnell said, “viewed my social media content as competition.” 

Gosnell, who conducts interviews across platforms and whose Instagram page features him posing with President Trump and various members of the administration, had hoped to use his social media work as a résumé builder for a television news job. But when a recent interviewer told him that he needed to shut down his personal accounts as a condition of getting hired, Gosnell not only refused, but viewed the request as shortsighted in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

“It seems like they’re just closing their eyes and hoping we go back to 1984, when everyone has a cable subscription and watches the news,” Gosnell said. “I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think people need to adapt, and they’re not doing it quickly enough.”