Is 'creator journalism' going to kill the media?

A couple of years ago I quit Twitter (as was) after a series of unfortunate events that saw some of the worst people in the world publicly calling me one of the worst people in the world. I left before it was trendy to do so, which meant that I was looking to establish a replacement outlet. My choice was TikTok, where I started doing very low-quality, low-effort videos to advertise my writing. I chose it, in part, because British journalism was something of a laggard there. It was perceived as so fundamentally Gen Z that the media establishment (ruled largely by millennials and Gen Xers) treated it like an alien planet, to be explored with trepidation. But I – noble redshirt that I am – forged my own path.

In the past few months, I’ve noticed a lot more British journalists (especially those, unlike me, still marooned in their 20s) jumping into TikTok. It has happened in such a swift deluge that I almost feel like I’ve missed some sort of industrial briefing, where the NUJ gathered all their chapels and told them that they had to start TikToking. “To save journalism,” I imagine someone saying, “you all have to do identical, purposeless promotional videos.” It is a touch hypocritical of me, of course, to note the fact that these videos serve little direct purpose. In my videos, I amble through my daily dog walk and give an unrehearsed summary of an article I’ve written. There is no call to action, no obvious advantage to be gained for my employer. The purpose, if there is one, is brand development.

This week, Deborah Turness, the recently departed Head of BBC News, made headlines when she delivered a lecture in which she noted a shift in the world of journalism. Venerable old broadcasters, like the Beeb, are, she claimed, facing increased competition from direct-to-consumer creator-journalists. “This revolution isn’t just about consumers moving to different platforms,” she said. “It’s that they are choosing more direct forms of journalism.” These “more direct” outlets represent, in her view, an “existential” threat to the traditional models of journalism, where media monoliths would hire and fire talent, retaining the core reputational value. “My recent conversations,” she noted, “have only strengthened my view that news providers are going to have to be more prepared to liberate their talent.”