Who are the top journalists on TikTok?
With more than a billion active users on TikTok, according to the app as of 2021, more brands, companies, and media organizations are trying to grow on the platform and connect with this highly engaged audience.
I’ve been a journalist for more than 10 years, building social media strategies for the largest media companies like CNN, CBS News, and NBC News. In 2021, I joined TikTok. The more I used the app and the more my channel grew, the more I started to take notice of how other creators were using the app, especially journalists and media organizations that were standing out on the platform.
Here is a list of a few journalists and news organizations that I think are dominating TikTok and why they are succeeding:
Best news organizations on TikTok
At the top of the list is The Washington Post. It is one of the best examples of how a large media organization can tell original journalism on TikTok in an authentic way. The organization has 1.2 million followers on TikTok. The newspaper’s TikTok guy, that’s really what they call him, is named Dave Jorgenson and he’s a video producer at the Post. I first noticed his videos on TikTok during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. His TikTok videos lean into current TikTok trends as he tells complex news stories and facts in simple, digestible ways. Typically, his videos range between 15 seconds to 30 seconds, keeping viewers engaged and entertained.
Ever heard of the phrase no news is good news? Well, the media company Good morning bad news creates content that dives into bad or unpleasant news and tells it using a combination of dry humor, simple language, and an easy-to-understand format. With almost a million followers, the channel has carved a space for itself on the app, leaning into telling the bad, or good news, and helping the audience understand complex information clearly and succinctly. The channel publishes content that not only touches on one-off news moments and events, but it finds its strength creating content that is published in parts, such as its “Omicron superhuman immunity” series and “Capitalism is dead” series.
Morning Brew makes business news entertaining. The account has more than 300K followers and uses irreverent humor and current TikTok trends, like sounds and formats, to craft short business videos. The channel publishes series like Markets 101, which helps serialize some of its content. Its TikTok hosts leverage humor to help them tell important business news in quick and funny ways.
Best individual journalists on TikTok
The London-based CNN anchor has grown his account to more than 400K followers by sharing a variety of politics-based news, explanatory videos, and CNN footage. Unlike other big network journalists, his content feels more authentic to the TikTok platform because he uses features like the built-in TikTok greenscreen, which isn’t the sleekest feature, but a feature TikTok creators use to record platform-specific content. Foster also uses engaging hooks to captivate the viewer. His video, “Will Kate be queen,” which refers to whether Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, will become the Queen of England, got more than 1.8 million views. The video didn’t have high production. And the information in it wasn’t earth-shattering. It was a simple video that used the greenscreen feature where Foster explained the likelihood of whether Kate would become queen — spoiler alert, the chances aren’t that high (currently). I’m not a big fan of following news anchors on social media — I was a journalist for more than 10 years, and I worked at CNN for 6 of them. Generally, big network anchors don’t always do their original reporting, or they come off as awkward on social media platforms, however, I think Foster does a good job making his content accessible and not pretentious for the average TikTok viewer.
Taylor Lorenz is one of my favorite TikTok journalists right now. She reports on the creator economy, which I’m passionate about — so I’m a little biased. However, I think this tech reporter does a great job demystifying complex topics. Whenever I watch her content, I feel like I’m learning something new. For instance, she posted a video about how there’s a trend where influencers are faking brand deals to appear like they are more successful or in demand than they are and how that’s a big shift from the mindset creators once had about working with brands a few years ago. Lorenz talks directly to her viewers, and she uses great hooks and questions to grab viewers’ attention. With more than 500K followers, I think many other viewers agree that she’s worth the follow.
Another favorite journalism TikToker of mine is Cleo Abram. She’s a technology reporter who has done content series around topics like NFTs, crypto, space, and science. I’ve learned a lot of interesting facts from Abram’s videos, and I appreciate the way she can tell an engaging story, typically with a beginning, middle, and end. She also incorporates graphics and animations in her video to help illustrate the points she’s making. And she’s not fixed on only sharing videos about her niche. She has also published videos that were popular around celebrity news. For instance, one of her more popular videos is about why Kristen Bell was her favorite celebrity interview. By creating content that sometimes expands beyond her niche, Abrams can capture viewership from a larger audience.
I haven’t come across many journalists of different backgrounds or diversity, unfortunately. But I am glad I discovered Bianca Graulau’s channel. The Puerto Rico-based independent journalist tells powerful stories about socio-economic issues, climate change, and local issues impacting Puerto Rico. I’m from Florida, and for a few months in 2021, I was living in South Florida, that’s when I came across Graulau’s channel on the app. I think she uses a lot of great visual imagery to tell her stories, and I like how focused she is on reporting micro and macro issues about Puerto Rico.
From what I can tell, Scanlon isn’t a professional journalist, but she gained a following of more than 114K viewers by sharing daily business news updates around topics like the stock market, crypto market, and other business news events. I first took notice of her work when she posted a video about Evergrande and how its real estate lending practices could be the next Lehman Brothers situation for China — thus, possibly affecting larger global markets. I found her storytelling to be sharp, witty, concise, and engaging. I watched that whole video through, and now I consistently watch her content.
That’s wrap of my top TikTok journalists
This is my (current) short-list of standout journalists on TikTok.
Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. And that’s because it’s not easy to find journalists on TikTok organically unless the algorithm detects that you’re a news junkie. I enjoy a lot of business and tech news, therefore my list above is a bit slanted towards those topics. However, I did do deeper dives into major network newsrooms like CNN, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and I looked through their TikTok content. I think most of those channels are fine, but they all sort of feel the same and unoriginal. That’s why I didn’t add them to this list.
For instance, if you’ve seen one White House press briefing on one network’s channel, why would you need to see it again on another channel? TikTok is about brevity, originality, and adding your own twist to a trend, sound, or piece of content. Another point I want to share is that TikTok doesn’t have a good search platform. It’s really hard to find a TikTok video again once you’ve swiped past it if you’re not following the creator. If you’re a journalist or a news organization trying to get discovered on TikTok, make sure to add the word “journalist” or “news” to your bio for audience discovery. I’ll post another blog post about how journalists and creators can optimize their TikTok accounts for audience discovery.
In the meantime, if you want to discover more journalists on TikTok, Harvard’s NeimanLab is actively compiling a list of journalists in a spreadsheet that you can browse.
