She wants to make Gen Z more media literate via TikTok. Maybe it will save newspapers?

Kelsey Russell tried to find some copies of The Charlotte Observer when she passed through Charlotte Douglas International Airport last fall and came up empty-handed.

It made the heart of every Observer staffer hurt.

“What a buzzkill,” Russell said on TikTok on Sept. 23. “But I did get a Barbie ‘Time’ instead. But still … I wanted to see what was going on in Charlotte, what was cute there.”

The Charlotte Observer has been publishing since 1886, and it has been a vital part of the community ever since. But our world is changing. Chances are, you’re reading this on an electronic device rather than a printed broadsheet.

Local newspapers are still an important part of our world and crucial to how informed we all are, but a recent Pew Research study said one-third of adults ages 18-29 get news from TikTok.

Russell is not one of them.

Instead, she’s bringing newspapers to TikTok, and hoping to teach her generation media literacy.

A subscription and an idea

It started last year when Russell’s father gave her a subscription to The New York Times for her 23rd birthday gift. She took to TikTok to tell what was already a substantial following about all that she was learning from this curious new medium.

“I think that Gen Z should read the newspaper,” she told the TikTok world. She then proceeded to break down stories in her copy of the Times in a conversational way. When she explains anything from the war in Ukraine to a shortage of firefighters in New York City – where she lives and attends graduate school – she summarizes the stories like she’s gossiping with a bestie.

“It’s kind of what works for me and my audience because that’s how I talk,” she told CharlotteFive recently. “I’m also a gossip fan. I love to gossip. I love to hear a story, tell it to somebody and use my hands and use pauses to get them engaged. So I think part of it is just naturally how I tell stories.”

‘It feels FINITE’

At first, some of her followers were skeptical.

“It’s just so hard to hold it!” one follower commented on the challenges of newspapers. “So unruly.”

But she struck a chord with others.

“I love print newspaper cuz it feels FINITE,” someone wrote. “I can close it up and go about my day without falling into an endless pit of headlines and discourse.”

Which is exactly what Russell loves about the newspaper, too.

“I just feel like being 23, I’m on my phone so much,” Russell said. “And it’s very difficult for me to consume news – and also be getting text messages and also want to flip to Instagram.

“I feel like when I’m reading the paper, it’s my time. Like, I own my time. I sit down. Also, it’s in person. So no one’s using my thoughts that are turning into an algorithm. No one’s using the way I think and what I’m clicking on to promote what I should click on next. It’s really up to me to decide what I want to read next. And I don’t feel like we get that as much in the digital world anymore.”

‘My big break or the reason I get fired’

Russell has turned reading newspapers into what she says on her TikTok bio will be either “my big break or the reason I get fired.”

She’s up to four newspaper subscriptions – The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Post – and she spends an hour or two each night reading. She reads local newspapers whenever she can get her hands on a copy.

And then she relays what she’s learned to her 89,000 followers.

She’s talked about her newspaper-reading hobby on The Today Show and The Drew Barrymore Show. She’s been written about by Slate.com and Business Insider. And she thinks she understands why her TikToks summarizing newspaper stories have been so popular.

“I think I’ve learned how much people really want to learn,” she said. “People really are yearning to learn, and the newspaper is a great way to connect generations. … Younger generations still remember our parents reading the newspaper, we remember our grandparents reading the newspaper.

“People just really have a yearning for learning — kind of corny.”

Can TikTok save newspapers?

It’s tough times in the world of newspapers these days. In January, The Los Angeles Times laid off about a quarter of its staff. The Baltimore Sun recently was bought by a new conservative television magnate, and staffers fear cuts and news direction. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism released a study late last year that said an average of 2.5 newspapers were lost per week in 2023, and more than half the country lives in a news desert. Since 2005, the United States has lost nearly 2,900 newspapers and is on pace to lose one-third of all newspapers by the end of next year.

And when the lovable blue Muppet named Grover posted on X recently that he is, in fact, a news reporter (who knew?), an avalanche of replies both praised him for joining the journalism ranks and worried about his life choice.

“After a 40-year career in journalism myself, I sure hope you’ll be able to continue to afford to live on Sesame Street!” one person wrote.

“UPDATE: Unfortunately, Grover was part of the latest round of newsroom cuts,” wrote the account Stuff Journalists Like.

All of it is concerning and, frankly, downright depressing.

But Kelsey Russell is a glimmer of hope. If a 23-year-old can understand the value of newspapers and relay it to her generation on TikTok, maybe this old-fashioned medium will be cool, again.