People Get Their News from TikTok. This Doesn’t Mean We’re Screwed
For-you-pages aren’t just for selling half-price hair straighteners and ill-advised parasite cleanses anymore. According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, a “growing share” of adults in the U.S. are getting their news directly from TikTok, at a time when other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X are seeing a rapid decline in news and journalism engagement. It’s a direction viewed with skepticism by organizations that have failed to gain significant followings on short-form video platforms. Rolling Stone spoke to several TikTok news creators who believe the trend is an encouraging sign for news’ continued presence in the social media ecosystem, but say both the platform and newsrooms have work to do before the app can become a reliable stop for every kind of news.
As an app, TikTok has billed itself as a short-form platform for disrupting industries, selling products, and building individuals into money-making brands. But with its detailed content moderation, it’s been difficult for outlets to report on heavier news topics without losing important context or triggering guideline violations. Now, the rise in users going to TikTok directly for their news could impact the content people see on the app. According to the Pew report, while the number of U.S adults who say they get news from TikTok is small, that figure is continuing to grow, from three percent in 2020 to 14 percent in 2022. The research also found that the sentiment is most popular among adults aged 18 to 29, who, according to Statistica, make up the largest portion of TikTok users. Young adults want news, and research shows that more and more of them are using the app to fill that need. But can, or should, news organizations answer that demand?
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While Dave Jorgenson has been a video journalist for almost a decade, he’s best known as the main face behind the Washington Post’s official TikTok account. As one of the pioneers of newsroom-based TikTok teams, Jorgenson tells Rolling Stone the platform has already created new rules that will help give news TikToks more context, like prioritizing videos over one minute and emphasizing the need for accessibility tools like captions. But he says news organizations still have to adapt to platform-specific expectations before they can be considered trusted sources — like responding in the comments, stitching popular misinformation, and building a community.
“TikTok has never necessarily [pursued] being the app for news,” Jorgenson says. “But as TikTok becomes a bigger place for younger people to get news, we’re doing our best to be there as a source for people. We ask people in our TikToks, ‘Hey, here’s what’s happening. If you see anything [other videos] about the story that you’re confused about, tag us in that TikTok and we will do our best to reply to it and explain what they got right or wrong.’”
But combatting misinformation isn’t just exclusive to newsroom-based accounts. According to journalist and content creator Sophia Smith Galer, a world where more and more TikTok users are using the app for news is exciting for diversifying the pool of people who are reporting. But it could — and does — present a problem by creating news-branded creators who don’t follow or understand journalistic ethics and codes.
“Platforms need to be ready to feed that appetite and feed it safely. The people who are often best placed to make informative content about what’s going on in the world tend not to be journalists,” Smith Galer says. “It’s great to see our media space diversify a bit because we all know how journalism and media industries often lack diversity. But on the other hand, if the space isn’t being saturated by journalists, it may be saturated by people who are not held to any kind of ethical standards.”
Even if newspapers and online media sites increase the amount of available content on TikTok, users still have to understand it. That’s where Kelsey Russell, a media literacy influencer, comes in. What began as a video celebrating the New York Times subscription she got for her birthday has turned into a popular mission to encourage media literacy on the app, one print article at a time. Russell uses her videos to break down popular articles, analyzing and dissecting a piece’s major findings and assumptions. She tells Rolling Stone her videos are an attempt to push back against the fatalist way people approach a lack of media literacy in Gen-Z while helping those who want to engage.
“Kids are consistently consuming media from the moment they wake up. They’re on their phones on the ride to school, and while they’re learning content in the classroom, they’re also on their phones consuming other content, and the same cycle happens after they leave school,” Russell says. “So whether it’s the world of education or the world of media, we need to create the tools for them to help digest the amount of information they’re consuming. I don’t think our education has caught up to how much content is out there right now.”
TikTok users’ rising interest in news isn’t happening in isolation. Instead, the increasing demand is occurring while legacy organizations report a record number of job cuts and print revenue on a steady decline. And other social media platforms known for heavy interactions around news, like X and Facebook, have weathered major reports of election misinformation campaigns and shoddy content safeguards. Pew’s research emphasizes a growing desire from U.S. adults to find news where they go for everything else. And TikTok news creators tell Rolling Stone they already know the “why,” now it’s about the “how.”
“We’re still trying to hold TikTok accountable,” Jorgenson says. “The idea is that newsrooms should continue to report on what’s happening, but also they shouldn’t be afraid to report on it on those platforms. And what’s always been cool about TikTok is that from the very beginning, we have had that community. That’s very different from anything else I’ve experienced in my 10 years in journalism.”
“I really see an existential threat to newsrooms that comes from them not incubating, created journalist talent that can send their journalism that can do two things can send their journalism viral online, but who are also capable of distinctive storytelling that sets them apart from other news accounts,” Smith Galer says. “There may be an increased appetite for news on these platforms, but we can’t let that make us become complacent.”
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