There are new players in the field of news, and they are no longer operating at the margins.
Across South Africa, audiences are not only changing where they get their news, but whom they trust to tell it. On blogs, social media platforms, newsletters, podcasts and video channels, a new class of independent, or “indie”, information providers is exerting significant influence over the public conversation.
Sometimes called creator-journalists, indie info providers or news influencers, they combine reporting and journalistic practice with social media fluency, a strong personal voice and, often, a performative style. They enter the news space through diverse perspectives, personal statements and professional backgrounds. What unifies them into a single category, in part, is their creative leverage of the “creator economy” for sustaining their businesses amid an uncertain financial environment for South African media.
The Center for News, Technology and Innovation (CNTI) defines these actors as “people who are working to provide verified factual information with a personality- or voice-driven brand that leverages the creator economy”. That definition is deliberately broad. In South Africa, it includes former newsroom journalists, freelancers, political satirists, artists, civic-minded community members, subject-matter experts and entrepreneurs who have built direct relationships with audiences outside, or alongside, legacy media institutions.
Their appeal is not accidental. Many audiences, frustrated by political pressure, corporate influence, shrinking newsrooms and the perceived distance of traditional media, are turning to individuals who speak directly to them and cover the issues, communities and localised perspectives they feel mainstream outlets overlook.
This shift is already visible in South Africa. As of September 2024, about one in four people in the country said they get news from individuals rather than organisations; a striking figure in a media environment still largely understood through the lens of institutions.
The CNTI, in collaboration with Code for Africa, studied this emerging field of “creator-journalism” through a survey of 43 indie info providers in South Africa. The report, titled South Africa Indie Info Providers: Responding to Resource Constraints with Creativity and Collaboration, seeks to bring into sharper relief the professional niches of South African indie news providers, investigate their role in the information ecosystem, and understand the challenges they face as well as the creative strategies they use to overcome them.
The project participants came from diverse professional backgrounds, including journalism and the arts (4 out of 18). They founded their indie newsrooms driven by passion and mission, but also disillusionment with existing media systems. Many interviewees saw news media as too heavily reliant on foreign coverage, which lacks a local voice and tends to be overwhelmingly negative. Their practice specifically aims at filling this gap by fostering local connections in a direct-to-audience format, and providing more nuanced, locally rooted storytelling.
Some explicitly framed this as an effort to “decolonise” local media. One interviewee who had previously worked with international publications said they wanted to shift from writing about South Africa for international audiences to writing about South Africa for South Africans, because international coverage often failed to get into “the nitty-gritty”. Another interviewee described focusing on stories about people “who are invisible in the public discourse” and whose suffering is ignored by those with wealth and power.
Many interviewees started as freelancers aiming to supplement declining incomes through an indie practice. For some, social media initially functioned as a way to promote their freelance work and remain visible to editors, commissioners and audiences. One interviewee said: “As a freelancer… I’ve never really been able to rely on a publication to push my work.” Over time, this visibility became not just a promotional strategy but a professional survival strategy.
The term “journalist” resonated with many, but not all, of the participants. In the pre-interview survey, 11 of the 18 interviewees said they considered themselves journalists, while seven said “it’s complicated”. Some saw the term as too narrow for what they do. This complicated professional identity is central to understanding the sector. Indie providers are often not just reporters or editors. They are also publishers, producers, entrepreneurs, audience engagement teams, salespeople, social media managers and brand strategists. They defined success as a combination of mission fulfilment and financial sustainability. As one interviewee put it, success means “making a thriving living, not a surviving living, off of actually solving the problems I want to solve”.
The cohort brought business management skills from prior job experience into the indie news business, but still expressed a lack of preparation in sales and audience-building operations..
They prioritise distribution via social media platforms, leveraging the ability to reach large audiences without institutional backing. But their business models include creative strategies that go beyond scale, optimisation and algorithmic profiteering. Events such as live shows, industry awards, online webinars and artistic performances serve the dual purpose of revenue generation and developing a real connection with audiences to foster a grassroots sense of community.
Still, many among the cohort sponsor their own journalism through an independent business or a day job. At least seven of the 18 interviewees described effectively subsidising their own work. One interviewee said they had built another business to fund journalism, putting profits into what they called “this loss-making entity called journalism”. Many depend on grants and fellowships, which are largely seen as unreliable due to sporadic availability.
The survey data underscores the fragility. In the pre-interview survey, only four of 18 interviewees said they were fully able to support their lifestyle through content creation, while six said they were not able to do so at all and eight said only partially. The report notes that subscriptions and memberships, often seen as central to independent media in other markets, are widely viewed by South African interviewees as less viable. Several said South African audiences are either unwilling or unable to pay for news, and some felt that keeping their work free was part of their mission.
Many interviewees said that despite combining multiple revenue streams, they struggle to pay their bills, with some saying that they do not make any meaningful income from their indie brand. One interviewee captured the existential anxiety behind the business question by asking simply: “How do we keep this afloat?”
The emergence of indie news providers in South Africa is a disruptive ecosystem shift whose consequences are still unfolding. They are advancing ethical journalism that meets local information needs while upholding global standards. Although some see them as part of a fragmented “alternative” ecosystem that can weaken trust and amplify misinformation, the report suggests the South African providers interviewed do not fit that caricature.
Instead, many actively counter fragmentation by positioning their work within a broader media ecosystem. They build relationships with established newsrooms through broadcast appearances, republication, and co-hosted events, and for most interviewees, freelance work and indie branding are connected parts of the same professional identity. They appear to understand their audiences more clearly than their US counterparts, treating audience feedback as useful input and drawing on conversations, analytics, performance data, and comments to shape their reporting.
Their credibility rests not only on sourcing and fact-checking, but also on presence, engagement, and community trust. Interviewees emphasized answering messages, attending events, and “getting on the ground” to understand local realities, while also acknowledging the costs: harassment, toxic comments, misogyny, racism, and heavy dependence on opaque platform algorithms. These pressures do not place indie providers on the margins of journalism; they make them central to debates about journalism’s public role, as they test new responses to the same crises facing traditional media.
The strongest lesson from the report is not that indie providers will replace fully resourced newsrooms. They will not. Nor should they be romanticised as a cure for South Africa’s media crisis. But they show that there is still a public appetite for credible, useful and locally grounded information. They also show that journalism’s future may not be defined only by institutions, but by relationships: between reporters and communities, creators and audiences, freelancers and newsrooms, local stories and global contexts.
The question, then, is not whether indie info providers belong in South Africa’s information ecosystem. They already do. The more urgent question is whether the media industry, funders, platforms and audiences can help build conditions in which independent, credible and locally rooted information work can endure.
If South Africa’s newsrooms are shrinking, these indie providers are among those trying to fill the space left behind. They are doing so imperfectly, creatively and often at great personal cost. But in a country still marked by unequal access to voice, representation and reliable information, their work demands serious attention. They are not merely content creators borrowing from journalism. They are part of a broader renegotiation of who gets to inform the public, whose stories are worth telling, and what kinds of media can survive in the gaps between institutional decline and democratic need.
Saif Ali is a senior programme manager for CivicSignal, Code for Africa’s research unit, and a data scientist for civic intelligence and media monitoring. In addition, he leads research and technology initiatives at PROTO.