Dave Jorgenson, who launched the Washington Post’s Tiktock Presence in 2019, said he … more
Dave Jorgenson
Dave Jorgenson, the face of the paper Tiktock account and its YouTube channel, will leave the newspaper in eight years to launch his own video news company. This represents both a bet on his personal brand and a bet on another newsroom to a newsroom that is in the state of flux these days.
“Dear Jeff Bezos,” Jorgenson says he will talk to the newspaper owner in the narration for a one-minute video he posted on YouTube on Tuesday. “If you’re reading this, you already know. I’m leaving the Washington Post and starting my own company.”
From Tiktok stars to startup founders
Jorgenson, who helped bring the post to the Z era with a sketch-driven Tiktok and a brief expositor on politics, business and culture, announced that he is off paper to launch Local News International, a new venture aimed at mixing news and comedy in the style of Comedy Central’s Daily Show. The idea is to do more of what he made his name in the post. It’s about meeting where the audience is, not just the voice of the editor who feels human, but also resourceful. This time there was no 147-year-old news agency cache (and baggage) behind him.
“I think we are in a position enough to reach an audience who don’t understand the current landscape of news,” Jorgenson told me when he contacted him Tuesday afternoon. “From user comments, I am the first source to news articles from their first source. That’s why I take the news format very seriously, which is stupid yet useful.”
Importantly, he’s not going to do this on his own. He brings two colleagues to him, the former video chief of the Post (Jorgenson’s former boss) and his aide Lauren Sachs. Both are co-founders of LNI Media, and Jorgenson is working on brand partnerships and overall strategy while focusing on content.
Needless to say, this is also the latest blow to the post. CEO Lewis’ vision and shopping series of buyouts have sparked a famous departure not only Jorgenson but most recently WP Ventures Head Krissah Thompson. In fact, Jorgenson said in an interview with the New York Times that the paper’s strategy was essentially undirected, saying, “I’m not sure they have the best roadmap right now.”
That critique comes when posts already face important challenges, including everything from loss of subscriptions to internal frictions over editorial priorities. Pamela Alma Weymouth, the granddaughter of the legendary former publisher Katherine Graham, recently wrote, “If the Washington Post gets dark under Bezos, we lose more than legend. We lose the very very much that makes America a democracy.”
In many ways, Jorgensson has been the most visible avatar of the post’s continued modernization over the past few years. As I wrote for Forbes in 2021, the paper celebrated hitting a million Tiktok followers at the time. It is largely thanks to Jorgenson’s output, which includes producing up to 10 tiktoks per week, combining hard news and absurd humor. That pace helped paper build what felt like an incredible degree of cultural relevance to platforms dominated by influencers and dance trends, etc.
Now he hopes the audience will chase him down to the local News International.
“I’m really excited to work with a brand that fits our spirit,” Jorgenson told me. “Do this with people I trust — Lauren and Mika make that part even more exciting. They can take the wheels there while I’m focused on the content.”
Jorgenson’s personal Tiktok and YouTube followers are relatively small, respectively, compared to the millions of Washington Post. But his bet is clear. In a broken media world, personality, tone, and trust are more important than legacy or scale.
