Gen Z field notes on journalism’s generational gaps
From May to August 2024, Canadaland had two keen fellows, Mia Johnson and Leora Schertzer, who wrote stories for its flagship show, also Canadaland. Most mornings, they were at the office at nine in the morning—hours before podcast host Noor Azrieh arrived—and they would be the last to leave. Nobody showed up to the office that early, other than founder Jesse Brown. The fellows frequently engaged in meetings and talked about the news. The stories they produced on their own usually took a team of three to four people to accomplish, according to Azrieh. Johnson made an episode called “The Painful Truth about IUDs,” while Schertzer created “Waste Management: Sh*t’s Complicated.”
Azrieh says the idea that Gen Z employees don’t work hard is a misconception. “Gen Z knows their value as workers,” she says. “It’s an excuse to label a group of people trying to do things differently, have fun, and create balance in their lives.”
“They really did this all on their own, front to back,” Azrieh continues, “interviews, scripting, and cutting. It was really impressive.” To her, Johnson and Schertzer were passionate, driven, ambitious, and inspiring. After they left, the office became quiet. It lost the energy and curiosity they brought to the table. “Every Gen Zer I know works so fucking hard,” she says. “You just have to create an environment where you get people excited and wanting to work.”
After three years at Canadaland, Azrieh, now 24, has taken the reins of the Canadaland politics podcast. She was compelled by the medium in her final year of journalism school at Carleton University in 2022 after not finding journalism fun otherwise. “Podcasting felt very experimental, and it didn’t feel old,” she says. “Hearing a source say the quote to you, instead of reading it, feels more intimate and unfiltered.” Azrieh’s foray into podcasting was noticed, and she won the “most likely to have a hit podcast” award upon graduating.
The previous hosts have had different personalities and styles. Azrieh sees herself in that same lineage: each iteration of the show reinvents how it communicates news. However, to prevent losing regular listeners she ensures her show is not drastically different from those of previous hosts. “Fatima Syed did an incredible job, making it feel like you’re sitting in a group of friends,” she says, adding that Mattea Roach was incredibly smart. “That’s not me. Sometimes, this brain takes a minute to form a thought.”
One of Azrieh’s contributions is how she is up for anything that can help attract a younger audience to her show. Being receptive to criticism and comments online feels very Gen Z to Azrieh and works to her advantage. “I’m the type of person who loves feedback. Even if you want to shit all over the show and tell me how to make it better. Email me, let me know,” she says. “I want people to feel like they can come on, have fun, and learn something.” If a meme on social media gets you to click on her podcast, so be it. “If you don’t embrace change, it’s going to come and eat you—like how it’s chewing up newsrooms, viewership, and ad revenue. Young people are going to change this industry. I believe it.”
Azrieh initially worried that Brown, her editor and publisher, would not appreciate the jokes and banter she brought to the show, but believes he has embraced and encouraged her as host. “I’ve been so incredibly blessed. My team and I have been given the keys. We are running with it and steering the ship.” Canadaland’s politics podcast targets an audience between 18 and 35 years old, but attracts listeners of all ages. Azrieh writes the show with fellow young staff members and shares the news in a way directed to people she knows in her life, and, in turn, young people. “We try to make Canadian politics more interesting, put it into context,” she says, “and explain why people should give a damn about it in the first place.”
Azrieh is not incorrect in saying that some newsrooms may find themselves on the wrong side of history if they don’t choose to embrace young journalists and the future. In Reuters’s 2024 Digital News Report, based on a YouGov survey of more than 95,000 people in 47 countries, only 39 percent of Canadians trust the news. That trust, it said, has been falling since 2018. This means that Canada is on the lower end of all global markets. The nation’s news habits have been shifting. Ninety-five percent of young Canadians between 15 and 34 follow the news and current affairs on the internet, according to Statistics Canada.
D. Jasun Carr and Mitchell T. Bard explain in their book, Journalism in the Generation Z Age, that Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, interacts with a news environment different to that consumed by earlier generations. This generation was the first to be born into an age where the internet was readily available, making it the most familiar with that mode of communication. The authors call Gen Z “social natives” and say that mainstream news organizations need to address the changed news consumption habits to stay relevant and trustworthy in the eyes of younger consumers.
Today, a growing number of journalists entering the newsroom are likely scrolling TikTok or Instagram in their free time. They are savvy to any new communication methods and understand the biases of a younger generation that may not see the difference between a journalist, an opinion writer, a broadcaster, or an influencer. In experimenting with media such as podcasting and short video clips, Gen Z also faces criticism from older coworkers, who reject journalism’s evolution past traditional norms.
In an article for Maclean’s called “You’re Wrong about Gen Z,” Stephanie Bai says that in the effort to prioritize mental health and a work-life balance, “Gen Z” has become an unfair label for those who are unwilling or unable to work hard. Across Canada, many Gen Z journalists who aspire to have a long career in the industry face this same tension. Some have already found their way through the door; some have only experienced their first internship. Whether their job is as a program assistant, podcast host, video journalist, or social media intern, each Gen Zer has a story to tell and is making strides to adapt the delivery of news for the future.
In late November 2024, a group of people file into the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Ontario. CBC’s Because News is recording its tenth anniversary special. The show begins like it always does—asking the audience if this is their first time attending. In a crowd of 300, several hands go up. The influx of new faces in their regular programming is not a surprise to program assistant Aliyah Marko, who has worked on the show for over a year, as each week sees a steady increase in new viewership. The show went from attracting 65-year-olds to having sold-out crowds of high school kids and people in their twenties, according to Marko.
She pinpoints the show’s shift to a younger demographic when producer Jess Klimowski first posted clips of the show to TikTok in May 2023. “Seeing Klimowski use social media in this new setting was exciting,” says Marko. She adds that journalists don’t talk about TikTok enough compared to older platforms such as Facebook and X, though that depends on the newsroom. According to Nieman Lab, Because News had posted content on its social media channels for seven years, but when Klimowski suggested they start cutting clips into “bite-sized portions,” the show’s TikTok reach increased significantly within just two months. By 2023, the TikTok page had 34 million views.
“It’s hard to understand how some Gen Z topics are accepted as valid, and others are not. There is a fine line.”
Aliyah Marko
While working as a producer for Because News, Marko did her own research which showed that the dominant demographic for news consumption is comprised of Gen Z and millennials. In other words, those who don’t get their news from broadcasts. “Newsrooms need to learn how to fill that gap through social media and use different short-form content to connect with more people.” The Because News TikTok posts make news digestible, says Marko. The show’s format, where host Gavin Crawford quizzes contestants on news headlines, allows the news to be packaged in a more personable way. “People go to the news to hear it, but they also need somebody to tell them what it means,” she says. “You can say the facts, but not everyone will understand what those facts mean.”
In addition to Because News, Marko also works for a CBC legacy radio program. The 9:20 a.m. pitch meetings are a playing field where Marko, 26, attempts to develop ideas that can engage CBC’s younger audience. Before taking on an internship at the show in July 2024, she was, for the most part, confident in her pitching abilities. However, upon joining a show that had been on the air since 1973, she needed to find new angles on previously covered topics and issues. In one of her morning meetings, Marko’s coworker pitched an idea on a Gen Z social media trend in which people share traumatic life events while dumping candy into a bowl. The trend, which blew up on TikTok, was a way for younger people to normalize therapy in a fun way.
When the idea was brought to the table, one producer laughed and rolled their eyes. Marko remembers the pitch being deemed a “younger story” and therefore not newsworthy. Every morning, she needed to present a hard and soft news pitch for the pitch meeting. Her ideas sometimes lean towards what her superiors would call soft news, a category that usually contains stories about Gen Z and social media. During the radio broadcast, the soft news would be interspersed with the hard news to create tonal balance. However, missing in the delineation is that many pitches that may be considered soft actually discuss hard topics in a way that younger people can respond to. “It’s hard to understand how some Gen Z topics are accepted, and others aren’t,” says Marko. “I feel like there’s a fine line between what is valid and what is not.”
With long-running shows, Marko understands that they have a formula they stick to because they know what works for their audience. “When your audience has been loyal for so long, it’s hard to adapt your show.” In the pitch room, some older producers were open to her ideas. Some have kids of their own, and others find the value in following pop culture and how it relates to our current society. To Marko, it depends on the person. “It’s important to learn what your editors and producers are open to.”
However, Marko has observed that not every newsroom is committed to including 20-year-olds in their target demographic, even though younger audiences are known to be the ones getting most of their news on the internet. She believes that if there is an opportunity to add a meme or a short clip that can grab and cater to a specific audience, it would be a waste not to use it. Because News proves that putting resources into online news platforms works. “Readers are more likely to remember something that felt out of the box or a little funny than a hard-hitting lede of a story,” she says, noting that young journalists “need to stand up for what they believe in. When the right news finds the right newsroom, producers will back you up and prioritize that.”
It’s 3 p.m. on a Sunday in September 2024 when CityNews Vancouver video journalist Lauren Stallone, 23, shows up at the site of a shooting in a residential neighbourhood. The police are still there sweeping the scene for evidence, but they won’t go on the record without their communications person. Stallone has no sources to speak to and a 6 p.m. deadline for broadcast. The only option for her to find a story is door-knocking, something her generation is not used to. “That strategy was a big deal 20 years ago. I don’t think of door-knocking as being always the best option when considering safety and other things,” she says, looking back on the day. “It’s a weird feeling to not know who is going to answer the door.”
Stallone is on the scene with a camera operator; she wouldn’t consider door-knocking alone. The pair start at the top of a hill and work their way down, being calm, respectful, and asking for information to help them accurately tell the story. Finally, they find a source who describes the sound of gunshots. “It’s a feeling only journalists can describe,” she says, “when you hear that perfect sound bite in person, and it all feels worth it.”
The experience was unusual for Stallone because, for her, so many stories can be found on Reddit and Instagram. These platforms make the ideas she generates different from those of her older coworkers, who are less likely to look to social media for news. However, multiple instances of discussion with her older coworkers have shown her the benefits of learning from traditional modes of journalism as well.
Stallone’s job at CityNews takes her out of her comfort zone, but she believes it has strengthened her journalism skills. “I find disagreement among my coworkers helpful,” she says. “When I do a story and I’m told, ‘Yeah, this works,’ I don’t feel challenged at all. I want someone to tell me, ‘But what about this?’”
While pushing herself to learn more, Stallone has also found herself in situations like being the only video journalist for a small CTV newsroom in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She found it hard to compare herself to older coworkers, who can refer to work they did—and experience they gained—10 years ago. After teaching herself that being young in the newsroom was okay, she saw it as a learning opportunity. “In Prince Albert, it was isolating and difficult, but then you come to Vancouver, and you have all the same skills as everyone else, just not career longevity,” says Stallone. “My coworkers respected me for having that experience and were willing to give me feedback and tips on how to improve.” In Vancouver, she continues to push her abilities across different types of journalism and outside her comfort zone, knowing she has some colleagues’ support if she needs it. “I may not be specifically into politics, but I pitch those stories anyway because it’s challenging, and I want people to see that I can do a variety of things.”
In May 2024, Lara Fajardo, a creative industries student at Toronto Metropolitan University, walks into the Bloor Street West main office of Exclaim! Media, which publishes a free monthly music magazine in Canada. As a new intern, Fajardo is terrified of pitching ideas to older coworkers for fear of doing something wrong.
One of the first discussions Fajardo has with social editor Sydney Brasil is about the backlash Gen Z and queer people experience online. Brasil’s partner had posted an Instagram reel with the caption, “How to dress like a local musician.” Since he is a local musician, he puts on his own clothes for the camera. “It’s supposed to be a joke,” Brasil says, “so he’s being a little bit ‘extra’ with his modelling.” The video went viral with around 446,000 views. Commenters said Brasil’s partner was either gay or queerbaiting and appropriating lesbian culture with his outlandish clothing. Since he is bisexual himself, being called gay online was not the issue, but the onslaught of hundreds of comments that Exclaim! typically deletes if they are offensive was a lot to bear. On Facebook, one commenter used the F-slur.
They embraced the TikTok joke that if a Gen Z intern were to write a script, it would be an incomprehensible mess of references
Exclaim! magazine was launched in 1992, approaching two generations ago, and part of its readership is what Brasil, 26, calls “dad-rock enthusiasts” who listen to bands such as Radiohead and Oasis. Most Exclaim! staff are in their twenties and thirties, and some of their music reporting covers what they listen to on their own time as well as music they dislike but their audience might enjoy. As internet trends constantly change, so do music styles, and Brasil says music journalism is akin to “exposure therapy” for older audiences listening to new music. Most of the publication’s older audience is on Facebook, so comments under a post on that platform about a new music act include general confusion. “You have to accept music is moving forward,” says Brasil. “Some people are going to be grumpy and stuck in their ways, and other people aren’t.”
Fajardo, 21, sports a shag mullet (a “shullet,” as Pinterest users call it) and several piercings on their eyebrow, nose, and bottom lip. “If there were someone who looked Gen Z, it would probably be me,” they say. At Exclaim!, they filmed an Instagram reel with the caption, “We let our Gen Z intern edit a reel for our new issue.” Fajardo ended up facing the disparaging comments their manager warned them about. They wanted to deviate from the typical method of promoting a new issue and instead embrace a popular TikTok trend in which Gen Z language and comedic sensibilities are employed. The trend jokes that if a Gen Z intern were to write a script, it would be an incomprehensible mess of references. As such, the reel does not include any narrative coherence. Almost no full sentences are shared, and the viewer is met with feedback from Fajardo’s crackling mic cut together with a mashup of Charli XCX’s song “365” and Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe.”
For Fajardo, a video attracting a new audience to Exclaim! is more important than whatever negativity they received from being performatively eccentric online. “I know I’m going to be labelled as Gen Z,” they say. “I’ll lean into it completely.” They consider themselves lucky when looking back on their internship at Exclaim!, saying staff were receptive to their desire to have fun with experimental modes of content creation. Fajardo gave themselves a recurring nickname both in their videos and around the Exclaim! offices—“little lesbian intern”—which referenced singer, actress, and Gen Z icon Reneé Rapp’s Saturday Night Live sketch, where Rapp joins a pro lipreading business as an intern. “I thought if someone young were to read our music magazine, they would know who Reneé Rapp was and understand the reference,” they say. “Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t.”
The masthead nicknames are more than just a tool to attract a younger demographic—they help make the work environment feel comfortable. Fajardo isn’t the only one with a nickname. Brasil is the “social media goblin,” while staff writer Ben Okazawa was the “handsome guy.” For Fajardo’s social media content, their nickname took on a separate persona that played up their eccentric fashion sense. They also adopted a bubbly charisma, even though they are more reserved in real life. “My persona was something my coworkers found charming and silly,” they say. “They knew I was a light-hearted person, and they could attach that persona to the work I create.”
Brasil likes to add personal flair to the publication’s social media, which encourages a community to form instead of being pretentious and isolating to readers. “We all have our own different tastes and personalities, and we want to let the readers in on it.” Brasil’s interns teach her so much, whether it be how to be unapologetically yourself or how to discover what is trending online. “A lot of these kids can just go out and do the job. They never had to train for it because they are really the online generation,” says Brasil. Fajardo believes publications should take more chances on young people and their ideas. “Having fun and taking a light-hearted approach bridges the gap between the usual older audiences and bringing in younger people.”
Zoe Pierson, 25, is familiar with Gen Z journalists facing limitations when they search for freelance work. Late last year, Pierson took a one-month contract with Bell Media, parent company and partner of BNN Bloomberg, as a broadcast associate. Pierson knew her experience at BNN would be demanding since she would be working with a short-staffed team. She was up for the challenge and the expectation that she had a basic understanding of the different online editing platforms they use. “If the company brings you in and you can’t do your job, they will give you less shifts,” says Pierson. She was doing reporter hits, cut downs, archives, and work in the control room. The company waited only two weeks to extend her contract.
One day, her producer in the control room realizes they are four minutes short for a show. Pierson runs back to her desk, remembering she had earlier helped schedule an interview covering the Alberta emissions cap. Between her two monitors, she quickly cuts the interview down while simultaneously getting stocks on the screen, cutting an intro, adding covers, and having everything done in a minute. “The producer was like, ‘Wow, that was really fast.’ I’m like, ‘Yep, just showing you I can do this,’” says Pierson. “I’m lucky that the people I work with see the effort. They trust me to do a lot of work on their shows and that helped me grow as a journalist.” After pulling long shifts at BNN, to make ends meet, Pierson has four to eight hours of serving beer to look forward to. “I’m very lucky to enjoy what I do, but it can be really tiresome. Like, I’m pretty tired.” However, Pierson’s tenacity in the newsroom has paid off, and she is now a unionized freelance segment producer for CTV.
Pierson is aware that she is one of the youngest people in the newsroom. She believes her coworkers have the workplace rhythm drilled into the back of their heads, and as a new member of the team, she was invading it. “When you enter a control room for the first time with people who have been doing this job for years, you either need them to explain things to you or you are not doing something the way they need you to,” says Pierson. “You mess up the flow for them. Sometimes you don’t even realize it.” Pierson is open to criticism and appreciates how it can make her a better journalist.
Still, it’s frustrating when her work, initially deemed incorrect, later turns out to be right. In one instance, a coworker who had been at BNN longer went into one of her banners and changed it. “I’m sure they just wanted to change it to make more sense for the viewers. I don’t have as much experience as a business journalist,” she says. Yet, when the banner went on air, it was spelled incorrectly. “They will always think that what they’re doing is the right thing, they have more experience and confidence,” says Pierson. However, she remembers when she would aggressively rearrange other people’s stories as editor in chief of Humber News. Her peers would be upset, understandably, but Pierson says accepting feedback from those higher in command is part of the job.
As a Gen Zer in the newsroom, Pierson has mixed feelings about the label. “The labelling is embarrassing. You have no idea what older journalists can provide you, what you can learn from them, or what they can learn from you,” she says. While she is deeply thankful for the trust and guidance from her seasoned colleagues, she says younger journalists should be given more trust that their work is correct and purposeful the first time around. “Sometimes people will change what you’ve written because you haven’t been there long enough,” says Pierson. “That lack of trust on both sides can end up in a mistake.”
About the author
Andrew is in his final year of the Master of Journalism program. As a former film school student, he has a deep passion for arts journalism. He has been published in Exclaim!, Today’s Parent, and his own Substack, The Ferryman. Outside of reporting, Andrew can be found breaking down shot compositions on his Letterboxd.
