Leaving The Post Behind

Dave Jorgenson—perhaps more commonly known as “The Washington Post TikTok guy” who helped bring serious journalism to short‑form video—announced this week that he had left the legacy newsroom to launch something entirely his own. After six years and more than a billion views under the “Washington Post Universe” banner, Jorgenson is striking out with Local News International, a new media company he co‑founded with two former colleagues from The Post.

His goal: to build a multiplatform news brand that blends humor, reporting, and the personality‑driven style that made his TikToks a hit with Gen Z.

In a conversation with Status, Jorgenson opened up about why he walked away from The Post and how he hopes LNI can become “The Daily Show” of the TikTok era. He also spoke about the dismal state of The Post—and why he still wants his old newsroom to succeed.

Below is our Q&A, lightly edited for style.

Take us back to the beginning—what sparked the idea that short-form video on TikTok and other platforms could be a powerful tool for serious journalism?

I had been hired at The Washington Post, in part, to reach younger audiences on platforms like YouTube. In 2017, I started The Washington Post Department of Satire on YouTube to … no acclaim. It got about 6,000 followers in two years from videos like this.

Like a true millennial journalism dork, I didn’t hear about TikTok from someone using it. I read about TikTok in an article by Taylor Lorenz in October of 2018. When I downloaded the app, I was stunned by how engrossing it was and immediately shifted my strategy to TikTok. I feel partially responsible for the rise of the important (but also kind of annoying) phrase repeated everywhere by everyone—“meet people where they are.” I couldn’t stop saying it in 2019, but I believe I proved I was right.

We started reposting those TikToks to that Dept. of Satire channel in 2022 as YouTube Shorts. They started taking off so we rebranded all TikToks, Shorts, and Reels as Washington Post Universe. In June, we hit a billion views on YouTube. It is absolutely a powerful tool for journalism.

For years, many news organizations seemed to treat TikTok and similar platforms as beneath them. In hindsight, how big a misstep was that? And inside a legacy newsroom like The Post, how hard was it to convince colleagues that these platforms required native, platform-specific storytelling?

I think it was a misstep. Just across the street from The Post building is an amazing new museum called Planet Word. In one of their many interactive exhibits they explain how teenage girls are the number one source of new words and language. In 2019, TikTok was like a window into that as Gen Z found their voice. Why wouldn’t you want to be there, if just to understand how the next generation spoke and thought?

That said, other news organizations likely had a lot of factors working against them that I was lucky enough to overcome.

At least three things worked in my favor from the beginning:

In general, it helps to have good leaders around you. The person who ultimately let me start an account “under the radar” was Micah Gelman, former head of video, and now one of my fellow co-founders at Local News International.

My editor Lauren Saks took on the responsibility of editing and approving every TikTok for nearly six years. She also helped field any questions or concerns from others. Meanwhile, I had to freedom to play in my TikTok and Shorts sandbox and find out what worked. Lauren is also a co-founder at LNI.

The Post just announced it’s creating new roles focused on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram—essentially doubling down on the space you pioneered there. What do you make of that move?

I think it’s great they’re focusing on those platforms. We did a couple surveys with The Washington Post Universe audience while I was there. Both times, over 10,000 people responded within two hours—far more than we needed—and we had to shut the survey down (a good problem to have!). One of many positive takeaways was that viewers overwhelmingly trusted the paper more as a result of following us on TikTok and Shorts. It’s good short-term for The Post but also long-term when you consider future subscribers that we build trust with when they were teens.

Why leave The Post? Be honest!

I’ve been considering leaving for a long time. Despite my goofy, care-free online persona, I’m extraordinarily careful and risk averse when it comes to career changes. Especially with my family (featuring an adorable, slightly-crazy toddler) to consider, I did not want to make the big move until I felt I had a legitimate path to success.

Learning that Lauren and Micah wanted to come along with me was one of the final “oh this is it” moments. I’ve even got another former Postie, Sarah Hashemi, working with me. From day one in 2019, Sarah made our entire graphics package for Washington Post Universe. She’s responsible for the all-new LNI logos and graphics you’re seeing on our socials and newsletter.

I mentioned this in The New York Times article that the vision is not consistent at The Post. It’s like watching a basketball player pivot on both feet multiple times, but there’s no referee, or voice of authority, to call them out. I feel for my incredibly talented colleagues there who are preserving and thriving in spite of what’s going on above them. I desperately want them, and The Post, to succeed.

Your announcement video for Local News International—a tongue‑in‑cheek open letter to Jeff Bezos—felt like classic Dave Jorgenson. But seriously, how do you assess Bezos’ stewardship of The Post in recent years?

You know, Bezos, I’m told, is the person who signed off on expanding the TikTok team, which allowed us to hire Carmella Boykin and Chris Vazquez as co-hosts of the channel. For years, Bezos was seen as hands-off editorially but also there to help push initiatives the newsroom cared about. I often reminded our viewers of this in the comment section: “Yes, he owns the Post. No, he’s never stopped anything I’ve made.”

So—he gets it! Or, got it then, before the Kamala Harris endorsement was spiked. If you’re trying to make sense of what’s going on, you’re not alone. That newsroom is (still!) filled with extraordinarily talented people, who want to make it better. I hope he lets them.

Tell us about Local News International. What’s the vision, and what kind of content should subscribers expect from you out of the gate?

From the jump, starting last week, I’m posting the same Shorts and TikToks my audience knows and expects. That’s our bread and butter. You don’t take away your best menu item! But, to continue this weird kitchen metaphor, we’ve got a lot more cooking. A brand new menu item: we launched our first newsletter last Thursday, which will be written by former Washington-Post-TikTok-intern-turned-colleague-turned-ex-colleague, Chris Vazquez. He will dive deeper into the four videos we’ve posted every week. And I provide my take at the end of each newsletter. This is on beehiiv’s platform—not Substack. We’re super excited about what Beehiiv has to offer.

Finally (for the main course?), we’re in the process of talking to potential partners in the media on a weekly video series. I really think of our audience like that of “The Daily Show’s,” when it exploded in the mid-2000s. People were shocked to see millennials getting their news from Comedy Central. Similarly, in 2025, some people are just coming to terms with the massive audience on YouTube, and their appetite for funny, concise news.

On average, in the Washington Post Universe our audience was in their early 20s. This data is consistent on my YouTube, Reels and TikTok channels as well. We’re often their first stop for news. I think that’s a huge responsibility, as well as a massive opportunity. I don’t want to scare them away from what’s happening locally and internationally, but hopefully make them laugh, learn and stay informed (new merch idea: “Live, Laugh, Get Informed”? Maybe this is the dessert part of the metaphor?).

How do you see your work at LNI standing apart from what you built at The Post? What will feel different about it to viewers?

The newsletter and long-form series will be the biggest, most obvious initial differences. The tone and general point-of-view will remain largely similar to The Post, but we’re building out our style guide and standards in real-time, and that’s where you’ll start to see some differences. I plan on making a longer explainer video diving into the history of style guides and newsroom policies. Then, I’ll post Shorts that cover one specific topic at a time, as they come.

Some examples we’ve already established in our first newsletters but will also cover in future videos:

What’s your ultimate ambition for LNI Media? How big could this get if everything goes right?

There’s no ceiling. I mean it when I say I want to be “The Daily Show” or “Colbert Report” for this generation—and the next. I’m bringing The Post’s two best video strategists with me. We have the audience, platform, tools and desire to pull this off.

It doesn’t mean our show will look like “The Daily Show” or a traditional news set. I’m shooting this out of a bedroom-turned-office-studio in my house. I share a wall with my daughter’s room, so I can’t even record after bedtime. Right now, she is attempting to walk on my keyboard. But I think that’s the charm of it. You’re getting your news in a personable way from a person you trust, in my funny little studio in Kansas City.

In this week’s episode of Power Lines: We look at Jeff Bezos’ shake-up of The WaPo’s opinion section under new editor Adam O’Neal—and what it signals for the newspaper’s future. We dive into the end of “The Late Show,” with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart openly ridiculing Paramount’s claim the storied program was solely cancelled for financial woes and “South Park” skewering the decision as caving to Donald Trump. And we examine MAGA Media’s sudden silence after The Wall Street Journal reported Trump once sent Jeffrey Epstein a birthday card.

You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the program, please make sure to like and subscribe!

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