I have worked for a lot of youth news outlets, and all but one no longer exist. How can we do journalism for the next generation?

I’ve had a dark running joke that working at TVNZ’s youth platform Re: News is like being a contestant on America’s Next Top Model.

Every six months over the past few years, Re: News staff have had to fight to avoid elimination. There has been restructure after restructure, redundancy after redundancy. It has meant rounds of meetings, union emails and sometimes even applying for and doing an interview to retain jobs some of us had been in for years.

Painfully, after each round, we’d watch some of our colleagues fade away, just like the Next Top Model elimination outro – if you know, you know.

Last week was the most depressing finale no one wanted to watch. On Friday, after nearly a decade of serving rangatahi audiences, and yet another restructure, the last three Re: News journalists (at its peak there were 12 staff) finished up.

The poster child for youth journalism

I am the poster child for youth journalism. I first started writing for Te Waha Nui, AUT’s news site. I then got an internship at Miss FQ, the youth wing of Fashion Quarterly at Bauer Media. Then, I did university work experience at Vice NZ, which led me to writing a youth news column called News of Zealand. Each morning before uni I’d sit in bed and regurgitate the story of the day into a “youthy” news piece that would resonate with young readers.

Right after I graduated in 2019, I joined Re: News. And that’s where I stayed for more than six years, mostly because I loved the kaupapa but also, over the last year or so, because I worried if I left, I wouldn’t be replaced.

The trail of despair that is youth journalism

Looking back on my career path, only Te Waha Nui is still standing. All those other youth brands I worked for have faded away, all have had their own depressing seasons of Next Top Model.

But it’s not only them. NZME’s social media brand ‘What the actual…’, along with audio platform Kick, RNZ’s youth platform Tahi and podcast ICYMI and even, if you go back a way, TV3’s Ice TV, have all gone. Every one of them.

This is not just a local problem. Vice, the global, edgy, sexy youth media brand that was once valued at US$5.7 billion, filed for bankruptcy in 2023. That same year saw the demise of BuzzFeed News.

Youth journalism is often one of the first on the chopping block when media organisations look to save costs – but why?

Re: News was born in a different era

Re: News was born in 2017, at a time when the remit was to reach as many rangatahi as humanly possible. And unlike some other youth brands, views and engagement were never Re: News’s problem.

The Re: News Instagram page peaked at 100,000 followers, 200,000 on Facebook and 60,000 on TikTok. Why? Because young people felt they finally had a platform that was for them. There were stories they hadn’t seen anywhere else, and were told in a way that reached them where they were. Mainly, though, the stories weren’t dumbed down to make the news “fun” in the way some brands had done, and which belittled young people’s issues.

Some say young people just don’t want to engage with news, that they just mindlessly scroll brainrot on TikTok and don’t care for substance, investigations or longform journalism. Re: News proved, without a doubt, that isn’t true.

But views and clicks do not equal survival.

Big tech is vital to youth journalism – it’s also a threat

Big tech changed Re: News and journalism in general. Social media platforms, like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, are vital for reaching youth audiences, but catastrophic for the financial sustainability of journalism.

We would work tirelessly on pieces of content that would live completely on social media, sometimes even paying big tech to have them “boosted” so they reached audiences outside of our followers. This meant we met our audience where they were, but made no money from huge numbers of views. All the while TVNZ footed the bill. When Re: News shifted its focus to TVNZ-owned platforms to make money, we quickly saw our engagement drop. It was a rock and a hard place situation.

So is there a future for youth journalism?

My answer: It’s bleak but not impossible. We need to find a way to throw everything at it at once: crowd funding, commercial support and public money.

Young people pay for Netflix, Spotify and, if you’re a digital hoarder like me, even Google Drive. If the journalism is worthy, original and targeted to young people, some audiences will pay for it. I know this because Re: News followers have previously commented that they would like to contribute via patreon or crowd funding to keep the platform alive. We didn’t get the opportunity to explore this, but I hope the next youth brand does.

I would love to see our two publicly owned media companies, RNZ and TVNZ, come together to support a youth brand.

Youth journalism will always be vital

I’m so sad to say goodbye to Re: News for personal reasons but also because it’s goodbye to investigative journalism, stories and perspectives for rangatahi that are often overlooked by mainstream media.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have been told: “Re: News is the only news I use”, which tells me traditional media isn’t reaching or resonating with some young people.

If media organisations can’t sustain dedicated youth platforms, then they need to get better at telling rangatahi stories in order to reach youth – and to be honest, to survive.

Because young people are the audience the media needs to win over if they want any audience in the future at all.