More than one in five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media, according to a study from the Pew-Knight Initiative.

Of those, 65% say news influencers have helped them better understand current events and civic issues, and 31% say they feel personally connected to a news influencer. And those under 30 are nearly as likely to trust information they get from social media as they are to trust traditional news.

Yet traditional media isn’t talking enough about content creators: what we can learn from them about building audience and connections and whether we should be partnering more with these creators.

At Knight Media Forum in Miami, I attended a panel on “Who gets to be called a journalist in 2025?” From the session pitch: “Explore how creator-journalists can bring rigor to their storytelling — and what traditional journalism can learn from their innovative approaches to building trust and engagement.”

Becca Farsace is among the 23% of content creators — that’s how she thinks of herself — who have a traditional journalism background. She worked at The Verge until deciding she wanted to branch out on her own to create more authentic relationships with her audience.

“I know my audience, and we are building something together,” Farsace said. “I know what kind of content they want to see because I ask and listen and hear from them. Instead of people being on a journey with The Verge, they are now on my journey.”

Liz Kelly Nelson, founder of Project C and the session moderator, is a trained journalist who now works with content creators. She said traditional journalists need to better understand that space. Content creators, she said, have big and bold ideas, are faster to adapt to change, and more attuned to younger audiences.

“News organisations can use lessons from the creator model,” she said.

In traditional media, I’ve heard concerns over trust — the idea that audiences trust your established brand and may be leery of trusting untrained influencers. In other words, if a journalist works for The New York Times, a reader can trust the establishment and its proven accuracy and rigor as opposed to an individual broadcasting from their own platform.

However, it’s important to understand trust from the perspective of the audience.

Katerina Eva Matsa, director of News and Information Research at Pew Research Center, said some readers certainly trust traditional institutions — but others are less likely to trust an institution over a person who isn’t considered part of the so-called biased mainstream media.

“Journalists often work for institutions that to us are trustworthy, but for some people, the creator is like a trusted friend,” said Joy Mayer, executive director of Trusting News. “This is not that different from citizen journalists or ‘bloggers’ from the past. I worry we’re trying to form an exclusive club of who does and doesn’t belong, and that’s not how our audience sees it.”

So what are we talking about when we discuss news influencers? A few examples worth checking out — and these are more traditional than many content creators out there:

• Jessica Yellin’s News not Noise. The former CNN reporter now runs a Substack and Instagram page breaking down the news.

• Marisa Kabas’ The Handbasket, billed as 100% independent journalism.

• Edison Lopez’s TikTok channel. He started publishing videos at the age of 17 and now has almost 900K followers.

Finally, here’s a resource that published this month and may be useful: Mapping your local influencer landscape.

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