Newsrooms become talent hubs for vertical video journalists

From Instagram Reels to TikTok, one pattern stands out: People follow people, not “the newsroom” as an abstract idea. Recommendation systems amplify this because they are designed to surface the consistent creator identities audiences already gravitate towards.

Younger audiences behave this way most strongly, but they’re not alone. Vertical video has quietly become a cross-generational news discovery system. All age groups are consuming more online news video each year, and the share of people watching social videos as a new source has risen from 52% to 65% since 2020, according to the 2025 Reuters Institute Digital News Report.

Younger people might drive the culture, but older viewers are very much in these feeds too. Vertical formats have become a default entry point. They’re not for every story, and not for every journalist, but they are for a growing slice of news discovery.

Meanwhile, news creators are filling the vertical video space fast. In many countries, they command more attention on short-form platforms than traditional outlets — a dynamic the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has also been tracking.

Parts of this shift are already in motion. Wired, for example, has launched several journalist-led video series and seen surges in reach and subscription growth. Outside traditional newsrooms, creator studios like Johnny Harris’s have already built production models where journalists are hired to front a standalone channel or account.

They succeed for a simple reason: They offer stable, recognizable identities. Algorithms understand them. Audiences know what they’re getting. And sure, the formats help because they’re fast, visual, and personable, but the real through-line is human consistency.

Here’s where 2026 comes in. As AI-generated content becomes more common, the value of human storytellers increases, in part because people are highly skeptical of AI itself. Audiences expect AI-generated news to be less transparent and trustworthy, according to the 2025 Generative AI and News Report. Algorithms increasingly optimize for creators with persistent on-platform identities because that’s what audiences engage with and trust. Audiences also feel overwhelmed by the news — four in 10 now avoid it sometimes or often — and say they want more accessible, less anonymous entry points. And in an ocean of synthetic content and misinformation, trusted news brands still matter when people want to check what’s real. But platforms and their users reward people, not institutions.

Put all of these forces together, and you get a newsroom shift. Not a new form of journalism, but a new distribution logic for legacy media.

Many outlets already produce vertical videos. They have social teams, presenters, explainers, and formats designed for platform rhythms. But today, those presenters often front stories reported by someone else, for efficiency reasons that made sense at the time. The audience rarely meets the journalist. The result is competent journalism delivered by someone they don’t associate with the reporting itself.

In 2026, that gap begins to close. The journalist who reports on a story increasingly becomes the person telling it on vertical platforms through their own account. Social teams shift from being the on-camera talent to being editorial support units. They help shape scripts, coach delivery, refine visuals, and protect standards. The core journalism stays the same. The faces change.

The emerging model is hybrid. Beat journalists publish vertical videos on their own accounts, building the consistent identities that platforms recognize. Newsrooms crosspost and co-brand the same pieces to maintain visibility, credibility, and reach. News brand accounts remain crucial, especially for formats that don’t need an on-camera presence. However, the relationship between social media teams and journalists becomes collaborative. The newsroom offers the seal of fact-checking and editorial integrity that creators alone cannot provide. Vertical video becomes a gateway to the rest of the newsroom ecosystem: long reads and videos, newsletters, and podcasts.

This model aligns with what audiences say they want: more transparency about how stories are reported, why angles are chosen, and what sources were used. Journalist-led video makes that easier. And it pairs the humanity audiences gravitate toward with the verification and standards they still expect from trusted news organizations. Influencers are now seen globally as one of the biggest threats for false or misleading information, which only strengthens the case for journalist-creators backed by rigorous newsrooms.

It won’t be easy: upskilling takes time, not all journalists feel confident going on camera, and online safety for reporters needs to be considered. Newsrooms will also need clearer guidance on how journalists can use their personal accounts to work within this model.

If news organizations embrace this model, several things are likely to happen at once. Algorithms get clearer identity signals. News brands are likely to grow through cross-posting with their journalists. Audiences connect with the people doing the reporting rather than an abstract institution. And the vertical video ecosystem becomes a pathway — not a destination — into longform journalism.

If newsrooms don’t embrace this model, the risk isn’t collapse — it’s a likely drift. The work will still be produced. It just won’t be discovered through the journalists behind it.

The bottom line for 2026: The journalist moves into the center of the video ecosystem, and the newsroom becomes the editorial talent hub behind them. It’s not a reinvention of journalism, just journalism presented the way people now find it: through people, not necessarily their employer’s accounts.