BuzzFeed News is tapping 'teen ambassadors' to make election-focused video content because serious news outlet

Sarah D | 2:36 PM on February 03, 2020

Well, if you didn’t take BuzzFeed seriously before … you will definitely not take them seriously now:

BuzzFeed News is "recruiting a brand new type of employee — dubbed 'Teen Ambassadors' — who will create original TikTok and Instagram videos as part of the site’s 2020 election coverage."https://t.co/6Idq0R07zY via @NiemanLab

— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) February 3, 2020

Sara Yasin, BuzzFeed News’ director of news curation, said three teen ambassadors — aged 16 to 19 — will be chosen to make weekly videos for TikTok or Instagram stories based on their passion for political issues and creative storytelling abilities. (No YouTube: Yasin said making a quality YouTube video would be overly time-consuming for the teenagers, who’ll likely be enrolled in high school or their freshman year of college.)

…

Yasin said she saw the new positions as just one example of the goals and methods of BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News aligning. “I associate BuzzFeed with a lot of innovation,” she said. “With [the teen ambassadors], we’re thinking about the way news is going to look in the future and playing around with that vision.”

The ambassadors will work remotely from swing states or “other places that might be overlooked in the nationwide political conversation” — though BuzzFeed News will bring them to New York for training and mentoring at the beginning of their tour of duty. A BuzzFeed News spokesperson said they will also be paid a “competitive” monthly stipend from March until the election but declined to specify a dollar amount.