For nearly five years, Dave Jorgenson was the face of The Washington Post’s TikTok for 6 years — the guy who made a 148-year-old newspaper feel like it had a sense of humor. He grew the account to 1.9 million followers and 86 million likes by turning the day’s headlines into absurd, self-aware sketches (like reading Sean Spicer’s memoir in a bathtub full of rose petals). 

To an entire generation, he was The Post. But in mid-2025, he walked away.

Jorgenson didn’t leave journalism though. He left borrowed land. Along with former colleagues Lauren Saks and Micah Gelman, he launched Local News International (LNI), a creator-led newsroom built on video, newsletters, and a direct connection with subscribers. 

Within 24 hours, LNI’s YouTube channel hit 100,000 subscribers. Within months, its beehiiv-powered newsletter passed five figures, many of them paying members.

Jorgenson’s move said what a thousand media panels couldn’t: audiences now follow people, not institutions. 

In this article, I’ll share more about Jorgenson’s approach to building LNI through beehiiv and what other independent journalists and creators can learn. 

Jorgenson joined The Washington Post’s video team in 2017 with a comedy background and a belief that news could be both serious and entertaining. 

In 2019, he wrote a seven-page pitch arguing The Post should launch on TikTok, way before the platform was as popular as it is today. 

Leadership was naturally skeptical. TikTok was for teens and dance challenges at the time, not D.C. politics, but Jorgenson understood what many in the media missed at the time: Gen Z wasn’t coming to newspaper homepages.

If journalism wanted a future, it had to go where the next readers already were.

The channel exploded. Sketches about congressional gridlock and newsroom life went viral. The Post suddenly felt alive online, and Jorgenson’s TikToks were the main way some followers encountered any news at all.

But according to Jorgenson, he hit a ceiling after a number of years. 

As his face became synonymous with The Post, questions around creative control surfaced. Who owned the audience? Who owned the content? 

The newsroom wanted to use his personal channels to distribute their stories. The line between “employee” and “brand” blurred… and not in his favor.

When he left in July 2025 with Saks and Gelman, many called it risky. Others saw it as inevitable. 

As Gelman later wrote on LinkedIn, “In the before-times, the brand lent credibility to journalists. Now, legacy brands need their employees to bestow credibility on them.”

LNI launched in July with a full ecosystem from day one, including daily TikToks, and a twice-weekly beehiiv newsletter.

Here’s how the LNI ecosystem works: 

Each piece feeds the next. When Jorgenson mentions the newsletter in a video, signups spike. When the newsletter goes out, readers click through to watch that week’s sketches. 

“Every time I talk about the newsletter on YouTube or TikTok, we get an influx of new subscribers,” Jorgenson explained.

The tone hasn’t changed — still funny, still self-aware, but the format gives him the room to build what he calls “The Daily Show for the next generation.”

Jorgenson’s Sunday letters (members get them first) are behind-the-scenes looks at building LNI with Saks and Gelman. The Thursday editions, researched by former Post colleague Chris Vazquez, provide context and sources for the week’s videos.

Jorgenson still opens with humor but closes with something a little deeper, like this recent issue "What the Sims can teach us about money power.” 

At The Post, millions watched Jorgenson’s TikToks. The question was how many would follow him somewhere quieter — an inbox.

Turns out, a lot.

Within months, LNI’s newsletter had tens of thousands of subscribers and a “healthy portion” of paying members. Open rates hover around 60%; click-throughs top 10 percent. (For comparison, most news outlets are thrilled with a 25–30% open rate.)

That loyalty became measurable the moment he started tracking engagement. When he published a newsletter titled Are Young Men OK? after a national tragedy, readers replied by the hundreds. 

“We received so many heartfelt responses from young men talking about how they really aren’t OK,” he said. “There’s so much darkness on the internet, and I’m trying to provide some level of hope and optimism while being realistic about the world.”

Readers also actively participate with the LNI brand. Each week, Jorgenson asks for pet photos to feature in the newsletter. “People are great about sending those in,” he laughed. “It’s a little thing, but it makes it feel like a community.”

All of this runs on beehiiv — and not by accident. Jorgenson joins the likes of other top journalists who have gone independent over the past few years, like Oliver Darcy (Status) and Catherine Herridge.

Here’s what that setup looks like behind the scenes:

Together, those tools make the operation scalable for a three-person team. Jorgenson focuses on writing and filming. Saks and Gelman handle partnerships and operations. beehiiv’s infrastructure handles the rest.

Most of LNI’s early revenue came from memberships, but the long-term opportunity is bigger: ad integrations, sponsorships, and direct partnerships with aligned brands. “Advertising! We need CPM-based deals and to be connected to advertisers who can do full sponsorships.” 

“If you’re an advertiser out there listening, call Micah or Lauren,” Jorgenson joked. 

For now, beehiiv gives them leverage without overhead. Automation replaces busywork. Data replaces guesswork. Ownership replaces dependency.

As Jorgenson put it, “It’s the direct audience connection - the ability to engage, offer them stickers, and get their feedback on what I should be doing.”

That feedback loop — publish, analyze, refine — is how creator-run media scales. TikTok gave him reach, while beehiiv gave him durability.

To legacy journalists, Jorgenson’s move looked like another defection — one more byline leaving the building. But as someone who covers the creator economy for a living (and a former journalist!), I cheer every single time I see a journalist take a leap to independent media. 

It’s like going against the gravitational pull. 

As audience strategist Ryan Kellett wrote on LinkedIn, “Crossing the brand-individual barrier is among the hardest things to do for traditional publishers. The fear that someone might grow bigger than the brand itself is what stops most outlets from going all-in on an individual’s channel.”

That fear is well-founded. When Jorgenson left, The Post’s YouTube views reportedly dropped more than 80 percent in five months, according to research done by Matthew Karolian. 

That reversal explains why tools like beehiiv matter so much right now. They let individual creators and journalists capture and measure that trust directly without waiting for institutional permission.

Jorgenson’s story lands at the intersection of two collapsing systems: traditional newsrooms losing talent and creators searching for sustainability. LNI sits squarely between them; it’s built like a startup, run like a show, and funded by the audience it serves.

Jorgenson hasn’t abandoned journalism for influencer culture. He still blends reporting and accountability with his unique dash of humor. The difference is control. “The newsletter is a great companion to the short-form videos I’m making every day,” he said.

This illustrates the revolution happening across media right now. The next generation of journalists no longer rely on mastheads to give them distribution, and the next wave of creators won’t rely on algorithms for stability. Both are meeting in the middle — in the inbox.

Jorgenson’s leap from The Washington Post to Local News International captures a defining moment in modern media: the move from building for institutions to building for yourself.

After half a decade proving that journalism could thrive on TikTok, he’s now proving it can survive without a corporate brand behind it. 

The next era of media will belong to people who can tell great stories and own the channel they tell them through.

If you’re ready to follow that path — to turn followers into subscribers, content into community, and creativity into a real business — start where LNI did.

Start your newsletter on beehiiv today!