Student Innovation Competition
Ends on
The Challenge
News influencers, newsfluencers or news creators - however you label them - are transforming how current events get shared and understood by the public. They build trust and reach with audiences who feel disconnected from traditional journalism and who prefer to consume information on social platforms. According to a report from the Pew Research Center, one in five Americans get their news from these news influencers, with a significantly higher percentage among adults under 30.
The Reuters 2025 Digital News Report highlighted this as one of the biggest trends this year, where “an accelerating shift towards consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of ‘institutional journalism’ and supercharging a fragmented alternative media environment containing an array of podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers.”
This year’s challenge is to work with a local to you newsroom to help them embrace these current trends to expand their reach and relationships in their communities by working in collaboration with local influencers (we use the term ‘influencer’ here to mean anyone in the community with a strong connection to the community, trust, and platform where they share information - but they aren’t a journalist.) These projects should meet an information need in the community while building a collaborative relationship between trusted ‘influencer’ individuals and the newsroom.
Read more about the challenge, rules and timeline.
Some resources to help student teams brainstorm ideas:
API’s guide to working with influencers
LMA article on need to know to collaborating with influencers
NPR how influencers are impacting journalism
Forbes how news influencers are reshaping media
Pew Research what we know about TikTok Creators