THE NEWS MOVEMENT

The News Movement's social-first strategy proves successful three years in

Social-first strategy proves successful three years in

The News Movement (TNM) is a Gen Z-focused news product founded by former legacy media executives in 2020. The organization recently expanded by acquiring The Recount, a “video-based service covering U.S. politics and power.” Ramin Beheshti, president and cofounder of TNM, said his company sought to answer why Gen Z was not consuming news.

“We started to realize that news has become more and more difficult to access,” said Beheshti.

He said TNM’S newsroom creates content that reaches people where they are and engages them in a way that they can understand it. Engagement is an important factor that led to the organization’s success, stating that the team is active in the comments section.

“We need to be engaging with the audiences who want to have a productive conversation on what we’ve just published. And if we do that, what we found time and time again is it drowns out the, I would say, slightly more ‘out there’ responses.”

Social media’s algorithms tend to highlight more divisive content. TNM focuses on providing quality content on par with high journalistic standards. The news organizations navigate those two elements in a “calm” manner.

“We do everything around the production to make it like a friend telling the friend the news, so it fits with the context of social media,” said Beheshti.

He said newsrooms can be fearful of social platforms, but TNM’S method of posting factual-based news instead of evacuating the space can help push back against misinformation. Beheshti said it’s also not “telling you what to think” — an important factor when reaching the Gen Z audience. A report published by Oliver Wyman and TNM surveying 10,000 Gen Zers shows that Gen Zers value authenticity more than any other generation and navigate toward Tiktok for that type of content.

The social-first news outlet is also keeping an eye on congressional activity, with legislation that targets social media companies like Tiktok. Beheshti said TNM’S mindset is to migrate where consumers go.

“Our mission is about meeting people where they are…they’re going to go somewhere else, and they’re going to consume content in that vernacular. And so we’re not wedded to one platform or another,” said Beheshti.

TNM said it does not rely on a subscription-based revenue stream but instead focuses on a diversified revenue model. One example of that is their in-house creative content team called The Collective.

“Everybody now wants to tell stories about what they’re doing, and we’re helping several big brands tell those stories…not in the traditional digital way, but on social,” said Beheshti.

Another strong revenue generator is their events-hosting arm called TNM ALIVE, which provides event experiences in different formats: in-person, virtual, or hybrid.

The various components under TNM work together as well. For example, the survey report published by the news organization was also used in a TNM ALIVE event where the results were presented and broken down for clients.

“We put on events for our audiences, but we put on events for key influencers and decision-makers to help them understand our audience,” said Beheshti.

Gen Z is a tough market to capture, but an important one, considering it’s becoming the largest consumer demographic in history. As the

Gen Z audience grows in influence and importance, social-first news media organizations can become a dominating source in the media landscape.

Victoria Holmes is a freelance journalist and writer based out of Dallas, Texas. Previously, Holmes worked as a TV news reporter and political podcast host at WNCT-TV in Greenville, N.C. Reach out to her on Twitter.