After newsroom cuts, The Washington Post turns to creator-led video deals 

Speaking at Digiday’s Publishing Summit in Vail, Colo., last week, Goo said about half a dozen creators will launch new series with The Washington Post every few weeks in different verticals. While the development of these video series is collaborative, creators produce their own content using their own personal resources and equipment.

“They’re used to doing that, and frankly, that saves us all a lot of money,” Goo said.

If the publisher retains the IP they’d typically have to pay high fixed salaries, invest heavily in production or offer large guarantees or buyouts. 

Goo told Digiday that this allows creators to remain independent and have control and ownership over their work, while allowing The Washington Post to achieve its goals for the creator network: reach a new audience, work more closely with creators and prove the concept of The Post’s creator-led video series to bring in sponsorship dollars. 

The Washington Post will make money from the creator program through brand sponsorships. Samsung is its first sponsor. Goo said The Post is paying creators to produce these video series (ranging from six to 10 videos), and share sponsorship revenue with them. She declined to give specifics.

The Post’s new creator network isn’t a way to compensate for a slimmer newsroom, according to Goo. It’s seen as complementary to the newsroom, as a separate business unit, she said.

“This whole division of the company has nothing to do with our recent restructuring at all. We started this eight months ago,” she added.

“What we’re doing is additive – it’s a new product, a new content area and, frankly, a slightly different audience,” Goo continued. “We need to have different content, different revenue streams for different audiences, to be a healthy media company. The goal here is to develop more revenue to support the newsroom and the journalists – and as a former newsroom leader, that’s really important to me.”

Goo, who was tapped as head of the creator initiative in August, was formerly editor-in-chief of Axios and managing editor at NPR.

She said leaning into creators is part of a natural evolution of media companies to move towards where audiences are growing and who they trust. News publishers – from CNN to Yahoo to the Daily Mail – are building creator networks to produce personality-driven content as referral traffic craters, platforms change their algorithms and audiences increasingly turn to individual creators for information. It’s also a way to tap into the growing creator economy – and the ad dollars fueling it.

That’s a critical move given publishers are concerned about the rise of creators: 70 percent of respondents to the Reuters Institute’s 2026 media and tech report said they were worried creators were taking time and attention away from publishers’ content. Half of respondents said they would partner with creators to help distribute content, and about a third said they would hire creators and set up content collaborations with creators this year.

“As a brand in news, it makes sense to be that bridge for consumers, to help them find trusted creators,” Goo said.

Last week, The Washington Post posted its first creator-led video content series, with personal finance creator JC Rodriguez. Called “Let’s Talk Numbers,” the show interviews people on the street about their personal finance decisions. 

Goo said the pitch to sponsors is the vetted creators The Post offers. Goo’s team verifies creators using AI tools to analyze their content published across platforms and evaluates their brand safety. Those same tools can be used to monitor their posts to “keep tabs on people’s content,” she said.

The Post also verifies creators’ credentials (such as medical degrees or other certifications). The Post shares its ethics policy and editorial process with creators as well, to ensure they are sourcing appropriate photos and videos without infringing on copyright, for example. The team also fact-checks each piece of creator content before it is published, which “allows us to control the quality for our audience and for any sponsors we work with,” Goo said.

The content is co-published and produced on both the creators’ own channels and The Washington Post’s platforms.

Last month, The Washington Post launched a newsletter covering the creator economy, called Verified, written by former Post political reporter Dylan Wells. The Post is also planning on launching events around creators, Goo said.