Like and subscribe: the rise of the journo infuencer

by Poppy Burton and Megan WarrenLister

Branding has always mattered to journalists. They carve out a niche, a distinct voice – a persona. All the greats traded on their own image to appeal to specifc audiences: it’s the edge that made Joan Didion cool, the searing factuality of Christopher Hitchens, even in Louis Theroux’s bumbling and gentle manner during interviews. But all of the above were journalists frst, public personas second, with their work defning how they were perceived. So what happens when people – infuencers specifcally – with a ready-made audience capitalise on their own clout and step into the world of journalism? Enter: the journo infuencer.

The term so far has been used to describe trained journalists who have pivoted to creating content online, like CNN’s Max Foster and TikTok star, Sophia Smith Galer. This demand for quick and engaging news updates from trusted voices favours techsavvy journalists with a keen awareness of where their viewers are looking; a good indicator of how journalism is changing to appeal to increasingly online audiences. Salla-Rosa Leinonen interviewed Galer in her research for LSE’s ‘Can journalists be infuencers?’ paper, and thinks fgures like her are democratising journalism’s core demographic.

“Especially in the younger audiences, we can see a clear change in social media usage,” she says. “It means we have to ask legacy media outlets to be more brave. We have to be able to embrace this new talent of very social media savvy journalists, who usually aren’t able to work in the more creative ways they’re capable of. It means that we have to value and understand this phenomenon more, and I think one really key factor is asking how we can approach people who are not interested in journalism at all.”

According to Reuters, 40 per cent of young people aged 18-24 say social media is their main source of news. A 2022 study from Ofcom paints a similar picture, with 22 per cent of teens turning to Instagram as a news source, closely trailed by TikTok and YouTube. For Leinonen, this refects the role that infuencers can play in increasing accessibility to journalism. The public’s appetite for online news content has been gainfully seized upon by organisations like The Washington Post, The Guardian, ITV News, and The Telegraph. But little has been said about infuencers stepping into the journalism space alongside established journo infuencers. Even less is said about the shift in language and approach to the work of the infuencers attempting to cross over.

On the surface, the journo infuencer pipeline is a natural one. As Symeon Brown wrote in Get Rich or Lie Trying, a book about the infuencer economy: “Once you have fgured out how to get people’s attention, you can monetise yourself as both a product and salesman.”

And if you happen to master both, you could have a burgeoning career in journalism on your hands. So, why do the waters become muddied and why is the work of journo infuencers considered ‘content’ and not ‘reporting’? In a general sense, traditional journalists and infuencers operate in the same way, consistently following trends and promoting content. But in the infuencer realm, users already have established audiences. For Leinonen, this means infuencers can be valuable in the journalism space. “If we think of the very diverse audiences that we see online, they have more freedom to fgure out the kind of personalities they like, and who is most relatable to them,” she explains. “If we continue to do journalism solely as we have done in print and broadcast, we end up losing a lot of younger audiences who use social media.”

Sharma for the Newspaper Research Journal. As bestselling author Brown told The Guardian, having a niche is the bread and butter of being an infuencer, and the result is an online market of personas; ranging from purported relationship gurus to fnancial experts and activists. Though sometimes content overlaps with genuine expertise – the danger in journalistic terms comes when it doesn’t. This is when the cracks in the glossy sheen of journo infuencing start to show.

Prior to her latest documentary, McDermott had a second public Instagram account, one of many in the canon of ‘what I eat in a day’ type profles (often a euphemism for the documentation of mild orthorexia). Though she deleted the account post-documentary, its very existence could be an integral piece of the journo-infuence puzzle. Before, and even during flming, the perception of McDermott as an Instagram ftness blogger was well maintained, with her frequently sharing ‘transformation’ posts highlighting her weight loss.

According to research published by Leonie Wunderlich in the International Journal of Press, the parasocial nature of infuencer and audience relationships mean that users can actually be more trusting of infuencers than journalists, because of the heightened sense of personal connection. But this is complicated by differences between the two modes of work, and the respective content they produce.

“I think the core difference is the purpose of these actors and also their self-perception. Most journalists want to inform, infuencers want to sell,” Wunderlich says. “Journalism is bound to normative standards (two-sources, verifcation, facts, etc.) Whereas infuencers don’t have the same ethical guidelines to follow,” she explains.

Despite this, infuencer’s follower counts, often reaching the millions, mean they’re increasingly seen fronting documentaries that require the same kind of journalistic rigour we expect from seasoned professionals.

Take Zara McDermott and her 1.7 million Instagram followers. The latest of her roles saw her present a documentary on eating disorders for BBC Three. McDermott’s huge following meant its message had a far greater chance of reaching its intended audience of young women. But it also highlighted some ethical tensions. Should an infuencer who has historically done paid adverts for low-calorie protein powders be charged with interviewing vulnerable people with eating disorders? And is the unease of that exchange worth it if the journalism reaches a greater audience?

From cryptocurrency to ftness (previously McDermott’s purported area), the infuencer space is multi-faceted. A common element of infuencer appeal is the production of a particular kind of content, according to research by Justin Martin and Krishna

“I think there’s a borderline between what is reality storytelling and journalism,” says Leinoen. That distinction, she says, is in the hands of the publisher and the framing of the journo infuencers work: “I think the responsibility of the publisher is how they position these people, but also about how they defne the role.” Would the reality TV star really have been asked to front the programme had she not placed herself as a wellness afcionado online? While the former reality star tried to defend her posting habits by explaining that she has a genuine passion for ftness, it’s up to the teenagers of an inpatient eating disorder facility featured in her documentary to point out the harm her Instagram presence has caused. Her knowledge and interest in ftness could have made her an appropriate presenter, but the fact it’s up to children probably ten years younger than her to induce her revelation suggests otherwise.

Maybe the rise of journo infuencers like McDermott is the price we pay for the authenticity that we all expect and demand.

According to data gathered by Sideqik, the trait is important to 84 per cent of consumers when they make decisions about which infuencers to follow. With relatability – one of the many currencies of perceived authenticity – McDermott succeeded with her food-focused posting. ‘Look! She’s eating Gigi Hadid’s vodka pasta! I had that yesterday!’ We want authenticity, and microspecifc content, but still it’s a stretch to say this endows creators with journalistic credulity. Personal passion cannot always be confated with expert knowledge, and according to Sharma and Martin, consumers also value transparency, which can be undermined in the infuencer space because of their association with commercial speech and paid-for content.

Tied into this are perceptions around the subjectivity of infuencer content. Although Wunderlich, researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research, recognises that subjectivity can be important, and hearing an infuencer’s opinion can help audiences to form their own, there are risks when this kind of content is consumed in an unqualifed way. “Many young people rely on infuencers for informational purposes and believe in what they say without critically questioning their intention and point of view,” Wunderlich explains. Although this might be true, she does acknowledge that having grown up online, younger users might be more competent and confdent in distinguishing between journalists and infuencers. Still, Leinonen says there needs to be a happy medium. As a producer at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, when Leinonen works with infuencers without training, they never work alone: “They will always have at least a producer, and usually another journalist behind them, to make sure we can fulfl the expectations and values of our publisher,” she says.

Enhancing the intersection between the two professions allows for the kind of relatability we all increasingly want from writers and journalists. Pandora Sykes’ recent collection What Writers Read is an insight into the demand created by our insatiable appetite to know what the people we like, like. With relatability (which inherently entails a large degree of disclosure) now prized among the journalistic profession, it seems only natural that the border of infuencer-country would become blurred, the latter being the experts in opening up – or seeming to open up –their lives for public inspection. There are overlaps in content production too.

On YouTube, the still preview squares for infuencer videos frequently come adorned with captions like ‘I tell ALL about my breakup’, or, ‘How I got over my frst date TRAUMA.’ With these excessive and emotive declarations common, there’s a defnitive overlap of roles. At a literary conference in Vienna reported on by the Post Script in 2018, Ted Coniver argued journalism and written culture has increasingly moved in the direction of the frst person perspective over the last thirty years. For Leinonen, this shift has been added to by the same underpinning principle of authenticity. But you could say these overlaps create a false association. Whilst according to Leinonen, the highly personal connection that infuencers have with their following is a central part of their power, traditional infuencer content is frequently perceived as unconnected to journalism.

Still, there are arguments in favour of a shift in this perception. “I think it’s a democratic question,” Leinonen says. “When we talk about younger audiences, they most probably wouldn’t recognise the difference between what is journalistic content and what is simply informative. I think it’s very important that journo-infuencers make sure that people all know that they do journalistic work, that they fact-check and research things, because that should be present in the content as well.” Transparency is key for journalists who work on social media, because it means their audiences actually understand the value of the work that they do behind all of the content. Examining the labour behind journo-infuencing involves “considering how journalists are actually serving the different levels of our societies,” Leinonen says. With the increasing role of social media in the consumption of news and other journalistic content, and a notoriously undiverse journalism industry, infuencers are well placed to enhance accessibility. Perhaps it’s just about clarifying the scope of their role.

The value placed on personal branding and its associated proftability will no doubt continue to be fertile ground for the infuencer-to-journalist pipeline. But rather than condemning individuals, we might be better off questioning the toxic alchemy of the attention economy, and our need to buy into the cult of individualism that got us here. Either way, the new journalistic landscape may not be a bad thing, and with appropriate constraints on content production and the application of journalistic rigour, journo infuencers could play a key part in democratising both the profession and the distribution of content.