A TikTok-like platform for news — Noosphere — hit the US app stores last week. The platform offers subscribers who pay between $14.99 and $19.99 per month an endless scroll of content created by experienced, independent journalists. It looks like it ticks a lot of the boxes for the audiences leaving traditional media behind in favour of news creators. But can it replicate the success of individual influencers?
A platform like Noosphere was bound to come along, considering the news consumption habits of modern audiences. Thirty-seven percent of 18 to 29-year-olds in the US get their news from influencers, according to Pew’s 2024 research. The US government is also handing out press credentials to podcasters and social media creators, so this percentage is likely to increase further this year. And Americans are not the only ones getting their news from creators online; the creator-fication of news is a global trend.
Ofcom’s recent news consumption report found that 52% of UK adults and 82% of 16 to 24-year-olds use social media as a news source. Facebook is still the country’s most-used social media platform for news, reaching 30% of those surveyed, but TikTok’s popularity is growing. Eleven percent of UK adults used the short-video platform for news last year, up from only 1% in 2020.
‘What we’ve seen in the last decade or so is traditional news brands finding it harder to connect with younger audiences who mainly consume news through social media,’ says Nic Newman, senior research associate at Reuters Institute. ‘They are drawn to personalities rather than news brands in those environments. Personality is really what’s driving the connection.’
Another reason why audiences are turning away from legacy media is a growing lack of trust. ‘Gen Z has a huge distrust of institutions of any kind, and we’re starting to see millennials and even Gen Xers share in that distrust of media. But where they are placing their trust is with people who they have some sort of affinity with,’ explained Liz Kelly Nelson, who writes a newsletter about creator-model journalism, called Project C.
Unfortunately, having an affinity with a news creator does not necessarily mean one should trust them, and Pew states that 77% of US news influencers have no background in journalism. Still, Nelson believes that audiences are becoming more discerning:
‘I think we’re starting to see the audience understand the difference between a creator-model journalist and a news influencer who’s really just somebody who’s got a take on something, which is fine and has its place. It’s kind of like the opinion section of the internet. But we are starting to see audiences really understand where there’s real journalism happening in the news creator space.’
As such, grouping credible news creators under one roof seems rational. Only invited journalists can create for Noosphere, and its tagline — ‘Get news direct from reporters you trust’ — makes clear the company’s USP as a space free from misinformation. Nevertheless, Nelson questions whether audiences would really want such a place.
‘I think it’s a misread of the audience moment we’re in,’ she said. ‘The value of the independent work that’s being done, especially in video, is that it is being tempered by cooking videos and viral dances and stuff that brings you joy so it’s not just a doom-scroll.’
Even so, she believes that the industry will witness more attempts at ‘bundling’ independent creators this year: ‘I am hearing from a lot of folks who are trying to figure out how to build the backend infrastructure and how audiences would pay for bundles. Noosphere is one of the first we’ve seen jump out there.’
Attracting advertisers
News influencers have another thing going for them in comparison with legacy journalism outfits — they’re cheap.
‘[Advertisers] can spend $40,000 with a YouTube creator and get a very targeted, loyal audience which leads to a lot of conversion, or they can spend two million dollars in a brand deal with Vox Media or The Washington Post or The New York Times,’ said Nelson.
She adds that while legacy publishers have a larger audience than most creators, the conversion rates tend to be lower because the audiences are less loyal. Publishers also tend to ignore all but the biggest spenders.
‘A $40,000 ad deal to a big media company is nothing, and it’s not even worth the salesperson taking the time to do that — they don’t want anything that’s under a certain threshold,’ Nelson added.
But news influencers still face some of the same issues as legacy media, such as brand safety. Brands might not want to appear next to content by journalists like Bisan Owda, who shares video footage from the war in Gaza, for instance. Noosphere’s focus on hard-hitting journalism suggests that the platform might face the same problem, too.
Where does this leave legacy media?
Against this backdrop, traditional news brands are desperately trying to keep their heads above water. Newman and Nelson think they have two choices: hire influencers or develop in-house talent.
Multi-award-winning journalist and creator Sophia Smith Galer argues they should do both: ‘Legacy media needs to incubate creativity and talent alongside co-commissioning with internet experts to make sure that they can stay relevant and profitable.’
The Washington Post was among the first to take action, hiring Dave Jorgenson as senior video producer in 2017. Jorgenson launched the organisation’s TikTok account in 2019 and a new YouTube channel in 2023. In January, The Washington Post also announced that it is building a ‘star talent unit’ to prepare for a future where, its chief communications officer Kathy Baird says, ‘personalities and creators lead the way.’
Other media organisations making similar changes include Sky News, which announced plans to become ‘a premium video-first newsroom’ by 2030, and Yahoo News, which hired nearly 100 online personalities and launched a creators tab on its US homepage.
Newman said partnering with creators is risky because their desire for independence and the ability to ‘express opinions unchecked by anybody else’ is incompatible with publishers that ‘care about their brand and credibility’.
Nelson is also doubtful that these efforts will make a difference: ‘I would refer back to the distrust in institutional media. V Spehar, who posts as UnderTheDeskNews on TikTok and has a huge audience, has said that they would never go and work for an institutional news brand now because they would lose the trust of their audience.’
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