When Dave Jorgenson joined The Washington Post in 2017, he was given a clear mandate: reach young audiences.

What no one could have predicted was that his experimentation would become one of the most influential youth‑engagement strategies in modern journalism — and change the way news media companies leveraged social media.

During a recent Webinar, hosted by the INMA Young Audiences Initiative, Jorgenson shared his journey and what he’s learned about the future of creator‑driven journalism. 

The accidental innovator

When Jorgenson arrived at The Post, he was part of the creative video team, producing YouTube‑focused satire and long‑form videos. He launched a comedy-based page called The Washington Post Department of Satire, and although he was happy with the work he was doing, he wasn’t satisfied with the engagement.

“I would spend two weeks on one video, and it would get 312 views or something. So I was never necessarily disheartened, but it was very slow progress,” he said.

Although those early years could be frustrating, they were also formative, teaching him the boundaries of humour inside a legacy newsroom.

When he stumbled across TikTok in early 2019, he immediately saw its potential: a young audience, a native editing language, and a chance to experiment with humour and news in a new format. With support from his manager, Micah Gelman — who advised him to keep the experiment “under the radar” — Jorgenson launched the Post’s TikTok account.

He did not keep it under the radar.

“I posted it and tweeted it and wanted everyone to know that The Washington Post was on TikTok,” he recalled.

He also landed on a smart internal strategy early on: Get the organisation’s most respected journalists into the videos. In addition to shooting videos with the then-Executive Editor Marty Baron, he enlisted some of the newsroom’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists.

“Those videos were funny but also very successful,” he said. “When [decision-makers] saw this video got a million views and it features one of the most revered people in our newsroom, it’s really hard to be like, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be on TikTok.’”

The Washington Post TikTok Guy was born. 

Building a new universe

Initially, Jorgenson was the entire team, taking on scripting, shooting, editing, and posting. But the pandemic changed everything.

When the newsroom went remote, he asked if he could focus solely on TikTok until they returned to the office, thinking it would likely be just a couple of weeks. But those two weeks became two years.

“By the time I came back to the office, that was very clearly my only job,” he said.

But that wasn’t all that had changed; a world on lockdown had discovered TikTok, and he was in demand.

“Before COVID, before we were working remote for two years, I had to walk up to someone’s desk and convince them to be in a video,” Jorgenson said. “When we came back two years later to the office, it was the inverse. People were coming up to my desk and pitching me on videos of what they wanted.”

During COVID, the Washington Post’s TikTok following exploded. In 2021, The Post approved hiring two additional hosts, Carmella Boykin and Chris Vazquez. The team expanded its presence to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, rebranding the operation as the “Washington Post Universe.”

By the time Jorgenson decided to leave in 2023, the account had grown to 1.9 million TikTok followers and more than 650,000 YouTube Shorts subscribers. And, importantly, it had a deeply loyal audience that trusted the creators as much as — and sometimes more than — the institution.

He had helped create a new approach to journalism, one that remained authoritative but was delivered in the language and cadence of the platforms where young people actually spend time.

Hitting the ceiling

Despite the account’s growth, Jorgenson felt he had hit a ceiling. “There wasn’t any other personal career goal I could accomplish while still at The Washington Post,” he said. He wanted to build long‑form series, expand formats, and innovate beyond the constraints of a legacy newsroom.

He didn’t feel aligned with the company’s new management, and when The Post offered voluntary buyouts, he took it — along with his two closest collaborators, Gelman and Lauren Saks. The launch of their new venture, Local News International (LNI), was announced in a New York Times article.

“[Management] knew we were leaving, but I don’t know that everyone there knew that we were leaving to work together,” he said. “So when The New York Times article came out, we were like, ‘I guess we’re gone tomorrow,’ which is pretty much the case.”

The first thing LNI published was a video letter to Jeff Bezos in which Jorgenson announced both his resignation and the launch of his new company: “It was a very big moment in media to just be like, this is happening!”

Hasse noted the impact of his departure has been widely chronicled: “What we’ve seen many times [are] charts that have shown how the video numbers of The Washington Post have crashed, and, on the other hand, your numbers went up.”

Now, many publishers view this as a cautionary tale, she said.

“We hear that publishers say, ‘We are afraid to put a voice or a face out there because what do we do if the Dave Jorgenson thing happens to us and he walks away with all our numbers?’”

But Jorgenson said the charts don’t reflect the number of videos he’s posting and that his former employer now posts fewer. News media companies shouldn’t be afraid to let journalists build a following, he said, adding that “big institutions have always had these people come and go.

“The Washington Post and New York Times have historically swapped reporters constantly. Some reporters are at The Times for 10 years, then go to The Washington Post. It doesn’t mean that The Times collapses.”

The Post’s mistake, he suggested, was not that they let him become a star; it was that they didn’t build a system around the work he pioneered.

A new model

LNI revolves around him continuing to produce videos, but there’s also a consulting component to help publishers build creator‑driven strategies and develop on‑camera talent, Jorgenson said. 

The idea of creator journalism is new; a decade ago, it didn’t exist as a job. Journalism schools are just beginning to teach it, so LNI can help reporters get up to speed. In a few months, LNI will debut a long-form series hosted by Jorgenson.

The goal is not to replace newsrooms but to build a new kind of one — one that treats creators as journalists and celebrates how they work, rather than fearing the shift. News media companies should lean into the change and trust creators to understand their audiences.

“Respecting that person’s relationship with their audience is the most important thing, and listening to them is really a big part of it,” he said. It also means being open to the rapid evolution of video trends and being willing to give new ideas time to work.

“A lot of things just need some time to sort of bake and get better and better,” he explained. “So having some patience and letting that evolve over a year or two is really important for the process, but also for that person in the newsroom so they don’t feel freaked out that, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to get fired if my fifth video doesn’t go viral.’”

As text, audio, and video formats blend, creator journalism and legacy media are converging rather than diverging. Today’s organisations must embrace personality-driven discovery while maintaining journalistic standards.

Using creator voices as gateways for young audiences will drive greater brand awareness and relationships. And it will be the publishers who empower such creators who will earn the trust, loyalty, and attention of the next generation.

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