Prior to INMA’s recent CEO Roundtable, I sought insight on content creators from three experts: Jeremy Gilbert, Knight professor in digital media strategy, Medill, Northwestern University; Liz Kelly Nelson, founder of Project C; and Sophie van Oostvoorn, a media consultant and author of the Audience Dispatch newsletter.

Gilbert is currently working on the second version of the Next Gen News report with FT Strategies and said content creators play a significant role in the report, to be released this fall. 

He posed some key questions for publishers to consider based on early findings:

• Legacy institutions need to figure out how to amplify the people in their newsrooms. New consumers want a personal, not institutional, connection. Newsrooms need to explain the value exchange with their newsrooms’ “creators.” Are facts gathered by reporters centralised and shared to “creators” for distribution?

• Why should these creators stay? What does the newsroom offer and what is its value (so that creators don’t go out on their own)?

• How can newsrooms make clear the value of the “bundle” of their creators/sub-brands? A singular institutional subscription may not be the answer. And maybe creators deserve a share of subscriptions to their content.

• What are the key values that creators associated with a newsroom or employed by it need to follow? Does that matter, depending on whether the creator is reporting, analysing, or opining?

Nelson, who worked in legacy media at the likes of Gannett and Vox in the United States before founding Project C, now trains and advises content creators. I asked her: “What is the main question you get asked by people in legacy media about content creators? How do you answer it?”

She said: “‘Are they journalists?’ That’s the big one. There’s a deep-seated skepticism in legacy media about whether creators (especially those building personal brands and monetising their audiences) can uphold journalistic integrity.”

“My answer: The best creator-model journalists are journalists. They’re doing original reporting, serving communities, and building sustainable models rooted in trust and transparency. They’re not playing at journalism. They’re practicing it with fewer safety nets and more entrepreneurial risk. Most of the people we work with at Project C are journalists who have been laid off, or chosen to leave, traditional newsrooms and media companies. They’re bringing all of their built-in journalistic values and training with them into the creator ecosystem.”

I also asked each of them: What advice would you give to CEOs of media organisations around the world about content creators? 

Here’s what they had to say:

Liz Kelly Nelson, founder of Project C

• You don’t have to become creators, but you do have to learn from them.Audiences expect a relationship, not just a product. That shift is existential.

• Talent is your most valuable asset. Support your journalists in building public profiles within your brand or risk losing them to models where they can thrive independently. 

• The wall between editorial and business is evolving. Creator-model journalists are figuring out how to protect integrity while being financially sustainable. Legacy media can do the same by embracing smart, ethical monetization strategies that involve their newsrooms.

• Diversify your support structures. Many creators are women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or from outside coastal hubs. These are groups historically marginalized in traditional media. Fund them, amplify them, and treat them as peers. 

• If you’re serious about trust, study the creator economy. Not the influencer hype, but the work of journalists building direct trust with audiences every day. That’s where the future of journalism is being shaped.

Jeremy Gilbert, Knight professor in digital media strategy, Medill, Northwestern University

“Every one of your audience-facing employees is and should be thought of as a news creator. And external news creators are potential distribution partners — as long as they share key ethical values.

“The value of news brands have not disappeared, but they are diminished and the value of individuals is ascendant. News orgs need to lean into creators — both those in their newsrooms and ones they can partner with.”

Sophie van Oostvoorn, a media consultant and author of the Audience Dispatch newsletter

“Content creators succeed where journalism often struggles: reaching people who feel unseen, unheard, or unrepresented by traditional news. Creators know how to speak to communities, not just audiences. They start with what people care about and build from there with personality, accessibility, and relevance. 

“Rather than trying to copy their formats or dismiss their work as shallow, media leaders should ask: What do they understand about the public that we don’t? How do they create a sense of belonging, participation, and usefulness in the lives of their audiences? The rise of content creators reflects what audiences have been trying to tell us for years: They want news that connects to their lives, not just content that meets our editorial standards.

“This isn’t about abandoning journalistic values. It’s about rethinking how we embody them in a changing ecosystem. Content creators operate in the same ecosystem but with a fundamentally different logic: one that’s conversational, not hierarchical. One that sees media as a shared space, not a one-way street.”

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