Can a rising nonprofit teach a new dog old tricks? News Creator Corps (NCC) officially launched this past September with ambitions of engaging online content creators in newsroom-style training through a Trusted Creator fellowship. Self-described as a “movement,” the program tackles growing public news consumption over social media in a Wild West with few guardrails for accuracy and accountability. As a result, fighting online misinformation serves as NCC’s North Star.
“Our goal is to really support these content creators because that’s how people are getting information,” said Executive Director Rachel Lobdell. “We know what a critical role they play in the information economy. We know that people, especially young people, are getting their information from creators more than any other source, and so our theory of the case [is], instead of telling people to not get their news on TikTok, what if we made the news on TikTok better? What if we invested in these folks to help them?”
NCC operates independently but stems from the broader Good Information Foundation, whose board approached and enlisted Lobdell to map out the mission. She started in July and calls the months that followed a “mad sprint” to get the nonprofit off the ground.
Last month, the inaugural class graduated from the eight-week digital fellowship. Program manager Annemarie Dooling helms the trainings, from putting together the curriculums to finding guest instructors. Conducted over a roughly 90-minute Zoom call, each week’s session centers around the guest’s expertise, followed by a Q&A moderated by Dooling and assigned homework. They cover anything from filing a public records request to developing a source list, from properly citing information to identifying AI disinformation.
Homework assignments allow the cohort to apply what they learned in their work in content creation. While they receive $5,000 for participating, Corps members do not get paid per post and do not need NCC approval on what they post.
A Discord chat channel keeps the cohort connected between sessions. “They’re constantly talking,” said Lobdell. “They’re building community with each other, and having a place to bounce ideas off [of]. Because one of the other things we’ve learned is that content creation can be really lonely. It’s a one-person operation for most of these folks. And so having other content creators to talk to is a really big part of the program.”
Dooling has worked in both content creation and journalism. She got her start as a teen travel blogger. Content creation opened journalism doors. The Huffington Post hired her, and she became one of the first social media editors at the time. She said there are a lot of people in content creation who have similar stories, who don’t have a J-school degree nor familiar connections in media. “And so that’s what really attracts me to this program, because I talk to them every day. They’re gems. They care so much, and I feel very connected to their work, because it feels very familiar to me.”
A new news industry
Last year, Pew Research Center found 21% of American adults receive news from social media influencers, particularly among younger respondents. The findings also concluded that fewer than a quarter of news content creators previously worked in the news industry in any capacity.
“There are so many things that content creators do better than journalists, and there’s a lot that we believe that these different information providers can learn from each other,” said Lobdell. “Content creators are total experts at community and engagement, at being relatable, at speaking with their community instead of speaking to an audience, and they don’t want to be journalists. Their goal is not to get a job in a newsroom. But their goal is to be trusted.”
Lobdell avoids conflating the curriculum with traditional journalism studies, but she wants to stress the validity of the cohort members’ work. Dooling considers many as “common sense skills” independent of a J-school education.
“We do have creators who have used public records to identify a lawsuit between Smucker’s and Trader Joe’s over Uncrustables,” said Dooling. “And we have another creator who turned a Substack about fashion into a data exploration around what is considered plus-size these days. We definitely see them using these skills in different ways.”
The fellowship also provides an opportunity for NCC’s researcher Maya Srikrishnan to examine best practices for combatting misinformation over social media. The veteran journalist spent the past few months interviewing cohort members and working on blog posts about them.
“Journalists have been fighting misinformation for a very long time,” said Srikrishnan. “Since the internet kind of came into existence, people have had the capability to go online and say whatever they want. That has really allowed a lot of misinformation to be spread at a rate that we had never seen prior.
“I would say the biggest issue — which I don’t think is just a problem for content creators, but for anyone who is trying to get good information out — is just now the volume of misinformation that is being put out.”
Meet the some of the creators
Corps member Angel Barragan, who goes by Senior_Barragan on social media, sought opportunities to hone his craft as he pursues content creation as a full-time career.
“I never considered myself a news person,” said Barragan. “I don’t consider myself a journalist. I’m a content creator that talks about the news more like a commentator. And I decided to apply, and I was very excited that I got in so I could learn more skills.”
The former educator — an ex-teacher and high school principal — boasts more than 120,000 Instagram followers and 325,000 TikTok followers, compelled by his anti-racist news commentary, which specifically highlights “immigrants with Indigenous ancestry to this continent.” Through the program, he learned to put more onus on citing his sources and reprioritizing professionalism.
Stephanie Valdez, who goes by Steph.olution at Instagram, completed a communications and broadcast journalism degree before digital media’s emergence. Twenty years later, she built a platform advocating for local Nevada issues, including education. She recently worked with a creator program for Kamala Harris’ campaign in the “Silver State.”
“I was excited to expand my skill set, even if I have a degree in it,” said Valdez. “So much has changed, and I also know that I may be a little rusty on things. So, I took my chance, and I was so excited when I found out that I was selected to be one of the fellows, and also seeing the rest of the group in the cohort. It’s been really a great experience to also learn from them.”
She doesn’t identify with the term “influencer.” Valdez says nobody comes to her for makeup tips or fashion advice. But she serves as a trusted local resource if someone wants to know about Nevada schools. The term “news creator” suits her better. “It was really great to be able to put a name to what I do,” she said.
Newsroom and creator outreach
Despite frequently dismissive attitudes from the media toward influencers, the folks from NCC believe the two worlds can coexist and even cooperate. They argue against the notion of content creators and journalists competing for the same news market share. Instead, they can provide two fronts against misinformation and for providing the news to the public.
“For a very long time, journalists [from] newspapers, radio [and] television stations were the main holders of information,” said Srikrishnan. “They were the ones who were going to politicians and doing all the work and getting information out. … That really changed once the internet came about. It became a lot easier for anyone to put information out, and journalists really lost that exclusivity and that access to a lot of information.
“Not all of it, there are still a lot of journalists, like investigative journalists, who are able to get more difficult-to-get information and put it out. But it’s a much different environment than it used to be. Part of journalism adapting to that new world is accepting that there are other people who can be trusted messengers of information, and figuring out how to work with them rather than against them.”
Barragan hopes NCC will open the door for more collaboration between creators and reporters. He said past partnerships with newsrooms usually centered around bringing eyes to the publication’s product, rather than the reporting. But the content creator knows he can offer more thanks to his deep ties with non-traditional audiences invested in immigrant rights and combating racism on social media.
NCC works with seven publishing partners currently, including Grist, McClatchy and the Trace — with potentially more to come in the next cohort. NCC plans to create a collective of alumni for publications to connect with.
“What we [heard] from newsrooms a lot is that they know they want to get in the creator space, but they don’t know where to start, and they don’t know how to find creators,” said Lobdell. “They don’t know who to trust; they don’t know what to pay them; they don’t know how to structure a collaboration. It just feels like so many open-ended questions, and so we see our function as bridging that gap.
“We have these creators who have been trained, who we’ve signed off on, who newsrooms can then say, okay, someone has vetted them. They know that they care about accuracy. They know that they’re going to reach the audience that we want to reach.”
NCC plans on expanding into schools, newsrooms and community groups. Lobdell also intends to examine a code of ethics for content creators, like how to handle corrections and provide transparency.
Dooling looks forward to more in-person programming following NCC’s first live class, held in Philadelphia last year. They met at a Dungeons & Dragons-themed bar and learned how to file a public records request. They’re hosting another in-person event in Nashville this month.
As for the creators, they’ll remain in touch. The Discord chat remains up, according to Valdez. “We’re also connected on social media,” Valdez said. “We’re all following each other. It’s so great to see what other people are doing and sharing. I want to amplify, not just because they’re my friends, but because they’re really good at what they do. They’ve all grown, and we’re all cheering each other on. I'm a hype girl.”
Tandy Lau is an award-winning journalist currently based in Jersey City. He currently works as a staff reporter covering public safety for the New York Amsterdam News in Harlem. He can be contacted at tandylau1995@gmail.com.
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