There was something in the water this year — was it the journalists who have launched independent media ventures? The ongoing engagement collapse of X? The loss of Google traffic? Whatever it was, something persuaded more newsrooms than usual to start putting their reporters front and center in explainer-led video journalism. This would have been rocket fuel for engagement in 2021; today, it’s not that it’s too late, per se. It’s more that it’s only half the strategy that’s needed.

As always with these formats, we have to look at speedy content creators and not the sluggish news media industry to understand where the major challenges are making successful content on social media. For creators, the challenge is rarely adoption; while news media were wringing their hands over whether to get TikTok accounts or not, ordinary people were becoming internet superstars overnight, first on TikTok and then on Reels and Shorts.

The challenge for independent creators is actually sustainability. Many of those doing constant explainers in 2021 no longer do so. A lot don’t because they burned out, or their lives could no longer fit around incessant churn. But many others don’t because they widened their video empires, and simply do not need to pump with the same modality; while journalists worried about the risks of growing personal brands, creators were building equity. Because the whole point of having a brand is that you can do something with it.

My prediction for 2026 is that journalists will start contemplating the same; as explainer journalism in vertical video formats becomes increasingly normalized, many will learn for the first time that high view counts don’t translate to high conversion in other ways — followers, paid subscribers, or the elusive metric of “trust.” They will need to give something more: a greater response to audience needs, and a community to join as opposed to a quick dopamine fix. Creators who are succeeding with this at the moment have perfected the art of using vertical video as a great summoning circle, conjuring in viewers who they then transport to the places they actually want them to go, like online courses, newsletters and platforms with lucrative revenue share opportunities. Beat reporters who perform well in these fancy newsroom vertical videos will want to see that this additional time investment and exposure to online comment sections will lead to greater, and remunerated, amplification of their work. Some may have to actually leave their organization to fully indulge in it.

But, if coordinated well, the series and content formats that wemerge from this will form part of the signature coverage that we know people pay subscriptions for. Then there will be other questions: Will newsrooms be willing to give their star talent their own newsletters and video series? Or will they let the view churn come and go, indulging in the increased boost for their platforms without sharing any of that with their familiar faces?

Journalists already have beats: now give them the equity and structural support that will help them build communities online in a fragmenting social media landscape, and not just a one-and-done explainer that is as ephemeral as yesterday’s newspaper.