There’s no slowing down media’s pivot-to-video 2.0
- Social Media
Just as publishers are starting to crack the vertical video code, social media platforms are looking ahead to a new format.
by Mia SatoNov 8, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC
- Social Media
Just as publishers are starting to crack the vertical video code, social media platforms are looking ahead to a new format.
by Mia SatoNov 8, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC Mia Sato is features writer with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.
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How it started
Almost exactly a decade ago, the media industry was in the middle of a video revolution — or so it thought. In the mid-2010s, publications poured money into burgeoning social media video efforts, chasing the promise of reaching larger audiences and opening new lines of revenue. Print publications and digital news outlets alike hired teams, pumped out content, and entrusted platforms like Facebook with their reach and distribution.
That pivot-to-video slowly revealed itself to be a lot of smoke and mirrors when it became clear that Facebook had inflated video views. Newsrooms cut writers and editors in a move to video — and then cut those video teams when they realized the pivot had not paid off. For many in the media industry, social video brings to mind layoffs and instability rather than the promised abundance.
A “pivot” feels inadequate to describe the current emphasis on social video, not just in newsrooms but in society writ large. Social media companies have reorganized their feeds to emphasize video, spurred by the massive growth of TikTok during the pandemic. But the media industry is still playing catch-up, and in some cases it seems to have been slow to jump in (perhaps cautious given past experience). It took years for some publishers to start incorporating vertical video on their websites, apps, and stories, for example, and it takes coordination and intention to get individual reporters in front of a camera to talk about their work. In the meantime, YouTube has become the most popular streamer, commanding nearly 16 percent of TV viewing, according to Nielsen. Twenty percent of Americans regularly get news from TikTok, and that number jumps to 39 percent for people 18 to 29 years old, Pew found.
Viewers favor the stripped-down selfie-style video dispatches from personalities they trust, even if those creators are not themselves reporting and writing the news. Compared with a decade ago, the barrier to entry and cost of making video content has plummeted: Anyone with a smartphone can become a video creator, no fancy equipment or editing needed. Social video is fast, personality-driven, casual, and, at times, unfiltered — the exact opposite from what news outlets are used to. A second pivot-to-video is underway, and the media industry once again wants in.
How it’s going
Video is unavoidable on social media, if not an expected part of how people and institutions show up online. TikTok’s influence is felt everywhere: on competitor platforms like Meta’s Reels and YouTube Shorts, of course, but also in unexpected places, like LinkedIn. There are no signs of it slowing down, either: The time spent watching Reels on Facebook was at an all-time high in Q3. Early tests in other countries suggest Meta is toying with the idea of dropping users directly into full-screen video upon opening the Instagram and Facebook apps. The appetite for video seems insatiable, and if news organizations won’t lean in, armies of content creators will be happy to scoop up the audiences.
Some news outlets were relatively early to the short-form social video boom. The Washington Post, for example, found notable success on TikTok before many peers had even created dedicated accounts on the platform. (Dave Jorgenson, the face of the Post’s social video effort, left the paper last year. He now makes short and longform videos under Local News International — perhaps a testament to the trust that viewers place in individual creators.)
Beyond having a short-form video presence, some traditional news outlets are leaning into formats and styles popularized in the vertical video era. CNN partnered with Jubilee, the popular channel that produces debate-me-style videos on hot-button political topics. The CNN town hall with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was conducted in the Jubilee style. The New York Times, which for years has produced polished documentary-style videos, recently introduced the vertical video series “The Call.” Unlike the Times’ more buttoned-up videos, the point of “The Call” is to create a sense of intimacy, like you’re getting updates from a friend: The show’s host ostensibly makes a video call to a journalist reporting on the ground to ask them about what they’re witnessing.
News outlets are also directly hiring or working with content creators. Some outlets like <
Source: www.theverge.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.