Every week, audiences are discovering news and storytelling through independent channels: YouTube explainers, TikTok dispatches, Instagram reels, and beyond. The pace of change is staggering – new platforms emerge, new formats go viral, and creators invent unexpected ways to reach people hungry for trustworthy information.

Trained journalists and storytellers are increasingly opting out of traditional newsrooms to build their own video channels. But what does it really take to make that leap? To fund yourself, sustain the work, and grow an audience outside of an institution?

That’s what we aim to find out. Project C, in partnership with The Video Consortium and Fordham University’s Department of Communication and Media Studies, is conducting the first deep dive into how independent video creators actually work, what challenges they face, and what support they most need.

The results, coming this fall, will be shared widely across the industry — to shape how funders, institutions, and peers can better back this growing field.

Here’s where you come in: help us help you.

• If you’re a video creator: take the survey and add your voice.

• If you’re a fan of creator journalism: share this link with three video creators you follow or know.

The more voices we hear, the stronger the results — and the faster we can build the resources that matter. 🙏 

the latest things

(Okay, some of them are a little stale, but I was on vacation 🌴 last week, so we’re catching up.)

📌 Former Atlantic/Vox writer and abundance-r Jerusalem Demsas launched a new well-funded indie title, The Argument. With $4M in backing and a climate in which “resistance to Trump has increasingly powered the massive subscriber growth on Substack,” Semafor’s Max Tani is bullish on the new brand’s chances.

📌 It’s a good time to be a telegenic journalist, writes Delia Cai. Or, to put it more plainly, in news organizations the “pivot to creator” is well underway.

📌 YouTuber Andrew Callaghan tells Semafor he was working an op-ed for the NYT about the rise of, and challenges to, independent news that was ultimately spiked.

📌 Former Axios EIC Sara Goo was tapped to lead a new Creator Network at The Washington Post. This latest iteration of the brand’s third newsroom will actually sit outside the newsroom now, reporting up to chief strategy officer Suzi Watford on the business side.

📌 Ann Helen Petersen celebrates five years of Culture Study in a piece that gets beyond marking the milestone to draw some lessons for others about the how she built her brand, her community and her own career destiny.

🎧️ Similarly, in a lovely Study Hall interview, food writer Alicia Kennedy talks about her path to a successful independent newsletter: “Use a newsletter to be the writer you would be if no one could tell you ‘no’… And just commit to it … Because I think you can never know what can happen if you actually put the work out there that is the work that is always in your brain … but you can't get anyone to take it, like, just. Do it. Media has shrunk so much that you have just have nothing to lose.”

🎧️ In case you missed it, another good listen: Pablo Torre talks to Max Tani and Ben Smith about becoming the NYT’s first creator deal.

the useful things

📌 Lex Roman makes a ton of sense most of the time, but nowhere more so than in their latest issue which calls on independent journalists to get past the limiting scarcity mindset.

📌 Substack turned on iOS in-app payments for paid newsletters and many creators are not happy.

cool things to do

📆 Join me in Salt Lake City Oct. 19-21 for the brand new Business of Local Conference. I’m looking forward to learning from publishers and local entrepreneurs who are evolving their businesses and making real revenue gains.

📆 Sign up to be among the first to hear the findings from the FT Strategies/Google News Creators’ Project. Initial findings will be presented in a Sept. 3 webinar.

📆 Cleo Abram has been added to the speakers list of Colin & Samir’s upcoming Press Publish NYT Summit (Sept. 4). Abram will also join a conversation with former NYT EIC Dean Baquet on Oct. 4 as part of Poynter’s Salon Series.

📆 If you’re reporting on (or otherwise interested in) reporting on the nuclear sector, join the Outrider Foundation Oct. 9-10 for a summit held IN A MISSILE SILO! 🚀 

📆 In November, I’m heading to Philadelphia to participate in KleinCamp, a one-day unconference held at Temple University with a renewed focus on news creators and other information providers. Join me! At $23, this one is super affordable.