Traditional News Companies Are Posting Jobs for ‘Influencers’ as Younger Americans Abandon Old Media

A 169-year-old news and digital media company that operates several daily newspapers across America is hiring so-called influencers for its coverage teams as it chases relevancy in a social media age.McClatchy Media has multiple jobs posted on its corporate career site for influencers to create “unforgettable audience experiences.”The company’s college sports product called Student Section is seeking a “dynamic personality and influencer” to become the voice of the brand. The role of College Sports Personality/Influencer is “connecting authentically with high-loyalty fan communities and bringing the excitement of college sports to life,” according to a job description posted last month. The company is seeking a candidate to develop, produce, and distribute “compelling content” across digital and social platforms. The position calls for the influencer to “leverage data, audience signals and AI-powered tools to guide your content strategy, always keeping the human connection and journalistic integrity at the center.”The company also is seeking a personality and influencer for its digital lifestyle brand Saltwater South that produces features on the Gulf Coast, Carolinas, and Florida. A posting calls for someone who embraces experimentation to “lead with energy, expertise and authenticity — crafting vertical videos, guides and social-first content that inspires and informs.”The positions fall under the McClatchy Content Innovation Lab, the company’s so-called next-generation approach to content. Both positions offer a salary up to $106,000 a year.Legacy news outlets have turned to gimmicks like working with influencers to reach younger Americans who are less likely to consume traditional news. A 2024 Pew Research study found that 37 percent of American adults under the age of 30 regularly get their news from influencers on social media.Media consultant Adriana Lacy helps educate newsrooms on strategy through her company Influencer Journalism. She says that while influencers can have large followings, they usually don’t have a journalistic background — an opportunity and a risk. Ms. Lacy says most influencer news content is not reporting but audiences often can’t tell the difference.In its own pivot, USA TODAY now has a reporter dedicated to covering Taylor Swift. The company hired Bryan West as its “Taylor Swift reporter” to cover “every angle of the superstar’s world” through news, features, and a newsletter. One of the goals is to attract a younger audience.Traditional media outlets are also turning to artificial intelligence to create content as newspapers struggle to survive. Reuters uses a suite of AI tools as part of the news process. One tool scans press releases in a few seconds and suggests newsworthy alerts, Media Bistro reported. Another tool suggests headlines for stories. Some outlets are hiring generative content editors to oversee AI writing.McClatchy got into a dispute with some of its reporters over the use of artificial intelligence. The company started to use a new AI tool to create summaries of news articles for use among different audiences. Reporters in several of McClatchy’s newsrooms withheld their bylines from articles created by the AI tool, the Columbia Journalism Review reported in April. Unions for McClatchy newspapers, including the Miami Herald, filed grievances against the company claiming the tool violates contract provisions.

Traditional News Companies Are Posting Jobs for ‘Influencers’ as Younger Americans Abandon Old Media

Traditional News Companies Are Posting Jobs for ‘Influencers’ as Younger Americans Abandon Old Media

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