--- title: "Companies Are Hiring Journalists to Build Their Own Newsrooms. The Evidence of Payoff Is Still Thin" summary: "From Ford and NVIDIA to Robinhood's Sherwood, companies are hiring veteran journalists to publish their own coverage as search traffic to news sites falls. Independent evidence of business results remains limited, and credibility depends on editorial standards." url: "https://marketing-insights.endatasite.com/articles/brand-journalism-company-newsrooms-hiring-journalists-evidence" publisher: "Marketing Insights" section: "Content & Brand" author: "Marketing Desk" datePublished: "2026-09-28T22:23:01.280Z" dateModified: "2026-09-28T22:23:01.280Z" sources: - title: "Storytellers wanted (Quill)" url: "https://www.quillmag.com/2026/04/27/storytellers-wanted/" - title: "Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026 (Reuters Institute)" url: "https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2026" - title: "Studie: Der Newsroom ist Standard – die Silos bleiben (persoenlich.com)" url: "https://www.persoenlich.com/prcorporate-communication/der-newsroom-ist-standard-die-silos-bleiben" - title: "B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (Content Marketing Institute)" url: "https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research" --- # Companies Are Hiring Journalists to Build Their Own Newsrooms. The Evidence of Payoff Is Still Thin *From Ford and NVIDIA to Robinhood's Sherwood, companies are hiring veteran journalists to publish their own coverage as search traffic to news sites falls. Independent evidence of business results remains limited, and credibility depends on editorial standards.* More companies are hiring experienced journalists to publish news and industry coverage under their own names. The trend is real and visible in job listings. Solid public evidence that these operations pay off is much harder to find. ## A Hiring Wave for Editors Outside the Press In an April 27, 2026 feature, Quill magazine writer Cory Schouten described a steady flow of corporate editorial openings at companies across tech and consumer brands. Anthropic was recruiting a managing editor. Autodesk posted an editor-in-chief role with a salary range reaching $279,000. OpenAI listed a storytelling lead at $275,000, and Marriott advertised a director of associate storytelling at up to $211,000. The article also named several hires from traditional newsrooms. Ford hired Nancy Trott, a veteran Associated Press bureau chief, in 2024 as editor-in-chief for internal communications, and later expanded her role to include external communications. NVIDIA hired Shara Tibken, formerly of CNET and The Wall Street Journal, as managing editor for a technical blog. Robinhood hired Josh Topolsky, formerly of Bloomberg and The Verge, in 2023 to build an independent media brand called Sherwood. HubSpot paid $27 million in 2021 for the media startup behind The Hustle newsletter. "There's a lot of crap out there. In this ecosystem if you want to differentiate then you need to hire a storyteller," Bourree Lam, executive editor of the Mozilla Foundation's Nothing Personal, told Quill. ## Why Companies Are Going Direct Two things are pushing companies toward their own newsrooms. There are fewer outlets to cover them, and the traffic that used to reach those outlets is shrinking. The Reuters Institute's January 2026 trends report, written by Nic Newman and based on a survey of 280 senior media leaders in 51 countries, cited Chartbeat data showing that organic Google traffic to 2,576 news sites fell 33% globally and 38% in the US between November 2024 and November 2025. Publishers in the survey expect search referrals to fall 43% over three years. When the press loses readers, a mention in the press is worth less to the company that earned it. The same report describes public figures going around traditional media. It notes that California Governor Gavin Newsom launched a podcast in February 2025 and predicts that more sitting leaders will build direct channels in 2026. Companies are following a similar path. As media executive Dorian Benkoil put it in the Quill article, "This is a new flavor of PR that's been brought about by the revolution in distribution." ## What the Evidence Actually Shows Most of the evidence for results comes from people who have an interest in the model. Noah Greenberg, CEO of the content-distribution company Stacker, told Quill that "brands are saying there's real business benefit to building out a newsroom content team." Stacker sells distribution services to brands, and the article did not include performance figures from any of the companies it named. The most rigorous recent data comes from academic researchers in Switzerland. It measures how communications teams are organized, not how much traffic or revenue they bring in. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Fribourg, the University of Bern and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and reported by Swiss trade publication persoenlich.com on August 19, 2026. It surveyed 216 communications professionals in November and December 2025. About 70% worked in organizations with newsroom-style structures. Respondents in those teams reported faster responses to trends and crises, a stronger media presence, better cost efficiency and more control over topics. However, these results were self-reported. The researchers could not confirm that newsrooms broke down internal silos, and collaboration between departments scored marginally worse in newsroom organizations. Broader content-marketing data suggests companies are putting more money into owned channels without being sure it pays off. In the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 B2B trends research, which surveyed 1,015 B2B marketers in mid-2025, 32% named owned media such as content, websites, blogs and email as a top investment area for 2026. Only 12% rated their marketing as highly effective, and 40% said their biggest content challenge was creating content that prompts action or conversion. Among teams running thought leadership programs, 80% measure success by audience engagement, while 63% track business impact such as leads and pipeline. ## The Credibility Question People in the field are open about the tensions. Greenberg acknowledged to Quill that "any type of content has the potential to be susceptible to bias," adding that readers need to understand what that bias might be. Aaron Foley, a former chief storyteller for the city of Detroit, said journalists who move into corporate roles "know they have to sacrifice some modicum of independence," but noted that the news industry keeps shrinking. He also warned against placing these teams inside PR functions that handle crisis communications. Andrew Mercier, senior director of editorial at Muck Rack, described the shift this way: "Ultimately, this reflects how the lines between journalism, PR and brand publishing continue to blur." A company newsroom that covers its industry candidly, including competitors and bad news, can earn attention. One that republishes press releases in a news-style layout usually does not. ## What This Means for Your Business For agencies and their clients considering a company newsroom or brand-journalism program: - **Start with a real information advantage.** The most credible examples depend on things only the company has, such as proprietary data, technical experts and customer insight. Without that, a brand newsroom becomes another source of commodity content. - **Define editorial standards in writing.** Decide in advance what the newsroom will cover, how it handles corrections, and how it separates news from promotion. Following Foley's warning, consider keeping it apart from crisis communications. - **Set measurement before launch.** Public ROI data is thin, so build your own. Track business outcomes such as newsletter subscribers, sales conversations influenced and media pickups of your coverage, not only page views. - **Treat it as a complement to earned media, not a replacement.** Owned coverage gives journalists something to cite and gives customers a direct channel, but it does not bring the third-party credibility of independent press. - **Budget for people.** The salaries in current listings show that experienced editors are expensive. A part-time or AI-only newsroom is unlikely to produce the differentiated work that justifies the model. - **For agencies, this is a service line, not a threat.** Many companies want brand-journalism results but cannot hire a full editorial team. Agencies with editorial talent can offer editorial planning, reporting and editing, with clear standards on what is news and what is marketing. ## Sources - [Storytellers wanted (Quill)](https://www.quillmag.com/2026/04/27/storytellers-wanted/) - [Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2026 (Reuters Institute)](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2026) - [Studie: Der Newsroom ist Standard – die Silos bleiben (persoenlich.com)](https://www.persoenlich.com/prcorporate-communication/der-newsroom-ist-standard-die-silos-bleiben) - [B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (Content Marketing Institute)](https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research) *Cite as: Marketing Insights, "Companies Are Hiring Journalists to Build Their Own Newsrooms. The Evidence of Payoff Is Still Thin", https://marketing-insights.endatasite.com/articles/brand-journalism-company-newsrooms-hiring-journalists-evidence (as of 2026-09-28).*