Dave Jorgenson, best known as The Washington Post’s TikTok guy, has launched a new weekly news skit show called, incredibly, Local News International.

The series will be similar to his other videos for The Washington Post but “it’ll cover news from all around the world with a sort of local news, lo-fi vibe,” Jorgenson explains in an intro video with his slightly exasperated boss. “Like if Ms. Frizzle couldn’t leave the classroom.” The Post will produce the series and the first episode credits staffers in video, animation, sound design, and production.

Instead of running on The Washington Post’s channel, however, the series will be published on Jorgenson’s personal account. Previously, videos produced by the Post ran first on the newspaper’s official accounts.

It’s a “subtle change,” as audience expert and current Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow Ryan Kellett noted, but a significant one.

“Crossing the brand-individual barrier is among the hardest things to do for traditional publishers,” Kellett wrote on LinkedIn. “The fear that Dave might grow bigger than the brand itself is what stops most brands short of going all-in on an individual’s channels. Because, as the thinking goes, what happens if that person leaves and takes all their audience with them?” (Kellett dubbed this “the Ezra Klein problem” in reference to the popular blogger leaving the Post to co-found Vox in 2014. Klein left Vox for The New York Times in 2020.)

“Publishers should experiment with empowering their top talent to take their work direct to their personal audience first,” Kellett told me.

On YouTube, @DaveJorgenson has garnered 46,000 subscribers and the official @washingtonpost has more than 2.7 million. On TikTok, Jorgenson’s personal account has more than 55,700 followers and the Post account has 1.8 million.

Anyone considering a similar arrangement should “hammer out what the expectations are to drive value for the journalist and the publisher, be it a link back, a call to subscribe, or a newsletter signup,” Kellett said.

News publishers have embraced journalists’ social media activity somewhat uneasily, often seeing personal posts as both a liability and an audience-building necessity. Or, in the case of The New York Times, as a distraction from reporting.

Jorgenson’s work — some of which has been critical of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos — strikes me as serving an important purpose at this point in the Post’s history.

His videos and social media posts help readers grasp the difference between the Post’s newsroom and its owner and some of his most unpopular decisions. (Jorgenson was one of several Washington Post reporters to say he’d resign and speak out if Bezos interfered with his work on the news side.) With the exodus of subscribers after the Post’s non-endorsement last year, that could be crucial to retaining subscribers for the Post’s frequently excellent journalism.

The first episode of Local News International asks “What can an executive order really do?” and you can follow Jorgenson on YouTube here.