Creators in the White House Press Briefing Room 🏛️

Independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators now have the chance to secure credentials for the White House Press Briefing Room.

Author

Lindsey Gamble
January 31, 2025

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TODAY’S EDITION

  • The White House opens its Press Briefing Room to new media voices.

  • Instagram introduces new insights to help creators track the performance of their Reels.

  • Meta brings ads to Threads ahead of its 1 billion users threshold.

  • LinkedIn rolls out a renewal process for its converted Top Voices badge.

  • Spotify unveils its version of the YouTube Creator Awards with the Creator Milestone Awards.

DEEP DIVE

The White House Opens Its Briefing Room to New Media Voices

The White House

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the White House will open the Brady Press Briefing Room to new media voices, including independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators. As part of this initiative, a dedicated front-row seat will be reserved for creators.

How to Apply

Interested individuals can apply for credentials through a form. Over 7,400 people have already applied.

A Brief History of Creators and Politics

Under the Biden Administration, the White House has engaged with creators in various ways, including hosting the inaugural White House Creator Economy Conference. During the presidential election, President Trump appeared on major podcasts like those hosted by Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, and Theo Von, whose large, predominantly male audiences were credited with playing a key role in his re-election success. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also collaborated with creators during her campaign, notably appearing on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast.

Just this week, the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee was spotted hiring a Content Partnership Manager to build relationships with creators, streamers, and podcasters in support of Democratic Members of Congress.

Why This Move Makes Sense

Creators have emerged as a force in the media landscape, especially as American’s trust in traditional outlets declines to an all-time low. One in five Americans now regularly turn to influencers for news. Creators thrive on digital platforms, where younger audiences live. As the media landscape evolves, it’s only logical for the White House to engage with creators who have cultivated attention and influence among these key demographics.

Why the Concerns?

While this is a great move for the creator economy and aligns with how people consume media, how it’s executed will be critical. Will the White House ensure a inclusive and diverse representation of new media voices? If we’re looking at the administration’s current actions across other areas, it’s probably no. Will creators amplify accurate information, or could they inadvertently spread misinformation?

A UNESCO study revealed that 62% of creators do not fact-check their content. While creators often bring fresh perspectives, many lack the editorial accountability that traditional media outlets provide. In legacy media, layers of fact-checking exist, but for creators, it’s often record, edit, and publish quickly. And with the powerful algorithms, content can spread rapidly, which is concerning when it comes to amplifying misinformation.

What Creators and Audiences Can Do

So, what is the solution? For creators who want to maintain their credibility and trust, it’s about finding ways to integrate more journalistic standards, like fact-checking and accuracy, into their content. This is why I find journalists who leave traditional publications to build their own outlets especially interesting. They typically bring that journalistic rigor into the fast social media world.

Meanwhile, we as audiences must develop better media literacy and be more conscious of our resources, whether legacy media or new media and take responsibility for verifying information before drawing conclusions.

NEWS, TRENDS & INSIGHTS

Instagram Continues Its Focus on Creators with New Insights & Guidance

After courting TikTok creators, Meta is doubling down with new Instagram Insights updates for Reels. The updates include:

  • View Rate: Percentage of followers and non-followers who continue watching after the first three seconds.

  • Views Over Time: Compares a post’s total views to a creator’s average across followers and non-followers.

  • Actionable, Personalized Tips: Suggestions based on a post’s performance.

Why It Matters: These updates offer deeper performance insights and clear improvement actions. View Rate stands out since the first seconds of a Reel, especially as most are being discovered through algorithm-driven recommendation surfaces. Creators can now assess whether their hooks hold attention.

These build on other recent updates for insights, like Views becoming the primary metric across formats.

Latest Tips & Resources: Adam Mosseri continued his video ranking series, this time focusing on Stories, which he positioned as a tool to engage “your most passionate fans” with behind-the-scenes and timely content.

Instagram also shared ideal dimensions for Carousels, Reels, and Stories to help creators and brands optimize the viewing experience for their content across formats.

Threads Begins Testing Ads Amid Rapid Product Updates

Meta has begun testing ads on Threads, allowing select brands in the US and Japan to extend their Meta ad campaigns to the platform. Initially, image-based ads will appear between posts on the homepage for a small percentage of users.

Why It Matters: Mark Zuckerberg previously suggested Meta wouldn’t monetize Threads until it hit one billion users, but its 320 million monthly active users and advertiser demand have accelerated the timeline.

While some users have voiced concerns, this could benefit creators, who play a key role in paid media strategies whether by producing ad content or enabling Partnership Ads to boost sponsored posts.

More Updates: Threads is evolving fast. In the past week alone, it introduced:

With 1 million new users daily and ongoing feature rollouts, Threads is rapidly maturing. Not sure how to get started? The platform also published a new guide with tips on finding content, sharing posts, cross-posting, and customizing your feed.

LinkedIn Revamps Top Voices Badges & Expands News Banner

LinkedIn is introducing a renewal process for its Top Voices badge, awarded to “global experts, leaders, changemakers, public figures, and innovators.” Once earned, the badge now lasts six months by default, it can be extended based on meeting program requirements.

Why It Matters: This change encourages consistent, high-quality contributions while aligning with LinkedIn’s guidelines. The renewal process ensures the badge remains a real-time reflection of impact. It follows LinkedIn’s decision to sunset the Community Top Voices badge, which recognized contributions to Collaborative Articles, a move that received mixed reactions.

Expanding the News Banner: LinkedIn considers commentary on news stories a form of subject matter expertise, making LinkedIn News Storylines a valuable tool for those aiming to earn a badge.

Identifying the best stories to comment on for visibility is becoming much easier. Since the fall, LinkedIn has been testing a News Banner, which highlights developing stories at the top of the mobile feed, which is now being rolled out to more users. When tapped, it directs users to curated articles and posts from publishers, journalists, and creators.

Spotify Rewards Top Podcasters with Creator Milestone Award, Shares Music Industry Payouts

Spotify has introduced the Creator Milestone Awards to recognize top podcasters. Presented quarterly, these awards celebrate podcasts that hit major streaming milestones: 100 million (Bronze), 250 million (Silver), and 500 million (Gold) streams. Inaugural honorees include Crime Junkie, Dateline NBC, and Rotten Mango, who will receive physical Spotify plaques, be featured across Spotify’s channels, and appear in a new in-app editorial hub.

Why It Matters: The Creator Milestone Award is Spotify’s answer to YouTube’s Creator Awards, which celebrate subscriber milestones. The metrics differ, but the goal is similar in highlighting top creators and inspiring others.

Music Still Takes Center Stage: While video podcasts are a major focus right now, Spotify isn’t letting its impact on the music business go unnoticed. The company revealed that it paid out $10 billion to musicians, songwriters, labels, and music publishers in 2024, a $1 billion increase from the previous year.

These payouts could grow even further with a new partnership with Universal Music Group, aimed at boosting monetization for artists and songwriters while introducing new paid subscription options and bundles.

QUICK HITS

Instagram appears to be rolling out the ability to pause Reels with one tap for more users. This feature has been available to some users since July. It's one of those features that should have existed a while ago but makes even more sense now, with the launch of three-minute long Reels.

TikTok launched Behind the Breakthrough. Its a new content series that dives into the stories behind artists who found a home on TikTok and have been able to take that success off the platform. Anyone else think this feels like a play off Meta's Breakthrough Bonus Program, which it's using to try to bring TikTok creators to Instagram and Facebook.

Video content on LinkedIn is generating 1200% more shares than text and images combined. This, along with other data LinkedIn has reported such as video being the fastest-growing format with a 36 percent year-over-year growth in weekly viewership highlights that video is the best way to drive growth on the platform. Need more convincing? I recently broke down why video on LinkedIn is the biggest opportunity right now.

After launching custom video feeds, Bluesky has now added a Video tab to user profiles. The tab showcases videos posted by users, including original uploads and videos shared from other platforms. With Bluesky reaching 30 million users, video seems to be a major area of investment for the platform’s growth.

Twitch is rolling out native exporting to Instagram. Streamers share clips from their live streams directly to Instagram. This timing of this is perfect as there’s more of an appetite for creators to diversify right now.

The NFL and YouTube have announced the Access Pass for Legends program. It will give former NFL players like Brandon Marshall and Cam Newton access to official footage for their YouTube channels, including video podcasts. While some athletes traditionally entered media through major sports networks, platforms like YouTube are now allowing them to build their own media businesses.

World Rugby launched the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 Content Creators Program. Creators will document the journey of players and teams, from training sessions to the games and have access to learning and networking opportunities. This follows up the PGA Tour’s Creator Council.

WHAT I’M READING

2025 State of Email Newsletters (beehiiv)

Why Creators Funds Are Back (The Information)

THANK YOU

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