Meeting the audience where they are: How Local News International is rewriting the rules of news delivery
When Dave Jorgenson and Lauren Saks take the stage at the World News Media Congress in Marseille this June, they’ll arrive with a simple but radical proposition: the audiences news organisations have been searching for aren’t lost. They’re just somewhere else – and they’re waiting to be met on their own terms.
Their session, News Creators: The Audiences You Need Are Already Out There. Are You Ready to Meet Them?, distils the philosophy behind Local News International (LNI), the independent, creator-led media company they co-founded in mid-2025 alongside former Washington Post director of video Micah Gelman.
Post – independence
Between them, Jorgenson and Saks bring formidable credentials. In May 2019, Jorgenson launched the @WashingtonPost TikTok account – blending deadpan humour, sharp news instincts and a flair for platform-native storytelling.
Over six years, “The TikTok Guy” built what became known as the “Washington Post Universe,” growing to 1.9 million TikTok followers and 680,000 YouTube Shorts subscribers, and winning eight Webby Awards, including ‘Best Creator’ on multiple occasions.
Saks, meanwhile, was the architect working behind the camera – as Deputy Director of Video at The Post, overseeing social, live, politics and international video. Before joining The Post, she had spent a decade at PBS building their Digital Studios from the ground up.
Their departure in July 2025 was motivated by a belief that short-form video wasn’t getting the institutional support it needed to flourish – for which Jorgensen says he now has: “Zero regrets.”
“I think both independent media and legacy brands can coexist in the same space,” he says. Saks agrees: “We took the best parts of the Washington Post and are now able to supercharge it to serve our audience in the best way.”
Building something new – fast
The pace of LNI’s growth has been striking. By February 2026, less than a year after launch, the venture had surpassed 250,000 YouTube subscribers.
Jorgenson’s newsletter – which skews heavily toward young men who tell him LNI is their primary engagement with news – is growing rapidly.
Their stated creative ambition is to build a “modern version of what The Daily Show was in 2004”: a cultural touchstone that made news genuinely compelling to a generation that might otherwise have tuned out.
Their business model is deliberately diversified. “A collection of a few types of revenue,” as Saks puts it: platform earnings, sponsorship, grants, consulting with newsrooms and non-profits, and direct member support.
Humour as a serious editorial choice
One thread runs through everything LNI does: humour. For Jorgenson, it is a principled editorial stance, increasingly backed by data – Reuters Institute’s latest research found that 20% of people, across age groups, actively want fun from their news.
“Humour has been the clear through line since 2019,” Jorgenson says. “The platforms and content have evolved, but humour has been the most consistent aspect of what we do – the one part that will never change, while we continue to adapt to audience habits and platforms.”
Just this week, Jorgenson co-hosted a workshop at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia – titled A 101 Guide to Doing Serious Journalism That Brings a Smile – cementing his role as one of the industry’s leading voices on the intersection of editorial rigour and audience engagement.
Journalism that travels
Jorgenson maintains a disciplined five-videos-a-week pace and has no intention of slowing down at Congress. “My goal is to keep this pace while in Marseille,” he says, “but I always make a point to use the backdrop of where I am and where I’m travelling while making videos.”
See their recent work in Portugal:
Jorgenson and Saks bring a working model to Marseille – proof that independent, creator-driven journalism can find and genuinely serve audiences that legacy institutions have struggled to reach. Their session title poses a question that their success story answers: The audiences news organisations need are indeed already out there; Local News International has simply gone to meet them.
Dave Jorgenson and Lauren Saks will present News Creators: The Audiences You Need Are Already Out There. Are You Ready to Meet Them? at the World News Media Congress in Marseille, June 2026.
