Hi there,
I’ve had a definition of creator journalism sitting in a slide deck since early 2024 when the little spark that grew into Project C first ignited. It was a big part of the foundational work I did during my Sulzberger Fellowship. I've put it up on screens at conferences and walked through it on panels. It's even been cited in a few research papers (with footnotes, which delights me more than it probably should 🤓 ). The one thing I somehow spaced on doing is sharing that definition here with y’all: the people who actually do this work and read this newsletter every week. Which is a bit like being the friend who recommends a great book to every stranger she meets and never mentions it to the people in her bookclub.*
So this week, I'm fixing the oversight.
THE PAGE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE ALL ALONG!
What Is Creator Journalism? is now a permanent page: the definition, a five-point checklist for whether someone qualifies, the research on how big this field is and whether it actually pays anyone, plus an honest accounting of what creator journalism is not. I'll keep it current the way you keep a reference current – think of it as Project C's source of truth. It says when it was last reviewed/updated and it will continue to be tweaked as this field evolves.
Here's a preview: “Creator” and “influencer” are marketing terms. The creator ecosystem is a medium. A delivery method, exactly the way print and broadcast are delivery methods. The people practicing journalism in the creator ecosystem are – drumroll – journalists. End of. Which means the question isn’t “is this person a creator?” It's whether they're committing acts of journalism in a medium that happens to carry a great deal of other things. (All of which jibes nicely with The Independent Journalism Atlas’ methodology, too.)
Here's my ask, and it's a selfish one on your behalf rather than mine: Most of you spend a shocking amount of energy explaining this work to editors who don't quite get it, to funders who want a category, to a source who wants to know what outlet you're with, to a relative at a wedding who asks what you do now that you left the paper. I wrote this so you'd have something to send them instead of doing the whole speech again.
Bookmark it. Use it. Question it. And then argue with me about it, because the checklist is deliberately broader than some people are going to like (opinion and aggregation are journalism too, and I'd rather have that fight in the open than in a group chat). Hit reply and tell me what I got wrong.
*Hey bookclub, right now I'm reading Dilettante by former Vanity Fair editor Dana Brown. Not brand new, but if you are also a fan of media memoirs – this one's for you.
🔥 THE LATEST THINGS
Karen Attiah won her job back at The Washington Post through arbitration – after building her Substack, “The Golden Hour,” to 56K subscribers while she fought to get reinstated. By her own account, that income is what let her weather what would've been a massive financial setback; now she's negotiating whether she can keep the newsletter and go back on staff too. CJR · The Golden Hour
Patreon shipped 30 new creator tools, including short-form Clips. Jack Conte posted the announcement himself; reads like Patreon chasing the same direct-relationship model indies already run on. Jack Conte's post · TechCrunch
Substack launched Creator Match, a dashboard tool that surfaces other writers with comparable audience size and shared interests for collabs – cross-posts, recommendations, podcast swaps – and lets you message them directly. Substack
Qwoted launched Independent Media Awards for indie sites. Worth entering if you qualify. qwoted.com
A Substack creator got a Capitol Hill press credential – circa 2022, it was a concrete institutional-legitimacy milestone that paved the way for others. A Media Operator
Oliver Darcy's first two years building Status — a retrospective on the indie-journalist-turned-media-founder playbook, from someone who's lived it. LinkedIn
The Knowing launches — veteran media exec Geneva S. Thomas starts an inbox-magazine aimed at Black millennials and Gen Z. Axios
Trusting News named the 10 creator journalists in its new Creator Credibility Cohort – the trust-and-credibility work Project C helped build with them, bearing fruit. Trusting News
Deborah Turness, former NBC News president, is joining independent talent group Studio – another senior legacy exec moving into the independent-creator world. Deadline
Political campaigns are quietly paying influencers to support candidates, with the payments frequently hidden from viewers – a sharp disclosure contrast to how creator journalists operate. We’ve covered this before here, but worth keeping up with the latest. NYT
The Guardian's Amol Rajan warns the BBC is “destined to shrink at an accelerating rate.” Guardian
😃 FROM THE PROJECT C COMMUNITY
Two members had a hand in this week's Dolly Parton coverage. Karim Shamsi-Basha wrote a personal tribute about photographing her at Dollywood in 1989 as a newly arrived Syrian immigrant – and the line of hers he's carried for 37 years since. Arab in Alabama. And Becky Bullard made an impromptu pilgrimage to Dollywood and ended up as the lede anecdote in the Guardian's Dollywood piece. 🎸
Bryan M. Vance hit 10K TikTok followers, landed a new $250 lifetime member, took 16 fully-off days and came back to a bigger audience anyway, and just marked his 13th straight month tracking Portland grocery prices. 🎉
Kaitlyn Arford ran a subscriber drive that landed 66 new paid subscribers plus 7 reactivations, then partnered with AIR to offer her audience three free months of membership. 🔥
Rahim Jessani hosted his first-ever live event in Boston and 100 people showed up! 👏
Jillian Melero got into the Pulitzer Center's Digital Storytelling Accelerator for climate reporters and edited her first short video within a day of her first class. 🎬
Julia Barton asked her subscribers what they're working on for a special upcoming edition and got an incredible response, plus three new annual subscribers off a companion discount.
Maureen Kelleher was quoted in a Chicago Tribune/Chicago Magazine piece and got picked up by the Illinois politics newsletter Capitol Fax, which brought a new paid subscriber along with it. 👏
Joey Scott published an investigation for LA TACO showing surveillance cameras in Altadena were donated after the fires and installed without the town council or residents knowing. LA TACO
Ashok Selvam's Ravenous, the worker-owned food outlet founded by laid-off Eater journalists, marked its one-year founding anniversary with a subscription drive. Ravenous
Rick Ellis published his own AI-use policy and pinned it to every page of his new site. Too Much TV
Welcome to new members: Kevin Foster, a Portland indie journalist covering activism and police accountability; Emily Gracey, a science communicator launching her podcast Atmosphere; Natashya Gutierrez, former VICE Asia Pacific Editor-in-Chief and part of Rappler's founding team; and Nicole, a Substack publisher who grew a grassroots Facebook community into a newsletter and media project. 👋
Members get at least one live event a month, usually more. All times ET.
Thursday, Sept 3 · 12 PM · Cracking PACER: Tips for Telling Stories with Federal Court Records. Seamus Hughes on navigating the federal court records system to break stories. RSVP →
Wednesday, Sept 9 · 12–1:30 PM · Values That Speak. Storytelling coach Megan Finnerty walks you through composing a true, first-person story about who you are, what you do, and why it matters. Members only. RSVP →
Open now: Applications for the Journalism Creators Startup Lab — EMEA Cohort close Friday, Sept 4 (midnight ET). Apply →
🎤 And here's where I'll be this fall. Come say hi:
Thursday, Sept 10 · I'm on a panel at INMA's Young Audiences Summit (virtual).
September 17–18 · ISOJ in Austin, paneling with LNI's Micah Gelman and indie journalist Aaron Parnas.
October 7–9 · The Blue Engine's Local News Camp in Durham, NC.
Ready to build alongside 250+ creator journalists? $39/month gets you the private Slack, members-only events and every replay in the Replay Room. JOIN NOW →
See who's building independent journalism, and where. The Atlas maps it 2,000+ verified creator-journalists, organized by beat, platform, and geography.
How this newsletter is made: A human (hi, it's Liz 👋) writes, edits and makes every editorial call here. I use Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, as a research tool — each week it sweeps my sources and assembles the first draft of the links roundup. Every link and every word gets a human read before it reaches you.
