New players have come into the field of news and they are no longer working on the margins.
Across South Africa, audiences are not only changing where they get their news, but they are also changing who they trust to tell them. Across blogs, social media platforms, newsletters, podcasts, and video channels, a new class of independent or “indie” information providers are having a significant impact on the public conversation.
Sometimes called creator-journalists, indie information providers or news influencers, they combine reporting and journalistic practice with social media fluency, a strong personal voice and, often, a performance style. They enter the news field through diverse perspectives, personal statements, and professional backgrounds. Their creative leverage of the “producer economy” to sustain their businesses amid an uncertain financial environment for South African media partly unifies them into a single category.
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 intentionally broad. In South Africa, this 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 within legacy media institutions.
His appeal is not accidental. Many audiences, frustrated by political pressure, corporate influence, shrinking newsrooms and the perceived remoteness of traditional media, are turning to individuals who speak directly to them and cover the issues, communities and local perspectives they feel mainstream outlets ignore.
This change is already visible in South Africa. By September 2024, nearly one in four people in the country said they get their news from individuals rather than organizations; A remarkable figure in a media environment that is still largely understood through the lens of institutions.
CNTI, in collaboration with Code for Africa, studied this emerging field of “maker-journalism” through a survey of 43 indie information providers in South Africa. report, title South African Indie Information Providers: Responding to resource constraints with creativity and collaborationSouth African Indie seeks to bring the professional spheres of news providers into greater relief, examine their role in the information ecosystem, and understand the challenges they face as well as the creative strategies used to overcome them.
Project participants came from diverse professional backgrounds, including journalism and the arts (4 out of 18). They founded their indie newsroom driven by passion and mission, but also disillusionment with existing media systems. Many interviewees observed that the news media relied heavily on foreign coverage, which lacked local voices and was overwhelmingly negative. His practice aims to fill this gap by fostering local connections and providing more nuanced, locally rooted storytelling, particularly in a direct-to-audience format.
Some described this as an apparent attempt to “decolonize” local media. One interviewee who had previously worked with international publications said that they wanted to move from writing about South Africa for an international audience to writing about South Africa for South Africans, as international coverage often failed to go into “nuances”. Another interviewee described the focus on the stories of those who are “invisible in public discussion” and whose suffering is ignored by those with money and power.
Many interviewees started out as freelancers with the goal of supplementing declining income through an indie practice. For some people, social media was initially a way to promote their freelance work and remain visible to editors, commissioners, and audiences. One interviewee said: “As a freelancer… I have never been able to rely on any publication to push my work.” Over time, this visibility became not just a promotional strategy but a professional survival strategy.
The term “journalist” appealed to many participants, but not all. In a pre-interview survey, 11 of the 18 interviewees said they considered themselves journalists, while seven said “it's complicated”. Some people find the term too narrow for what they do. This complex occupational identity is central to understanding the region. 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. He defined success as a combination of mission accomplishment and financial stability. As one interviewee put it, success means “living a thriving life, not just surviving” rather than actually solving the problems I want to solve.
The group brought business management skills from prior job experience to the indie news business, but still expressed a lack of preparation in sales and audience-building tasks.
They prefer distribution through social media platforms, taking advantage of the ability to reach large audiences without institutional support. But their business model involves creative strategies that go beyond scale, optimization, and algorithmic profiteering. Events like live shows, industry awards, online webinars and artistic performances serve the dual purpose of developing genuine connections with the audience while generating revenue and fostering a grassroots sense of community.
Nevertheless, many in the group sponsor their journalism through freelance businesses or day jobs. At least seven of the 18 interviewees described effectively subsidizing their own work. One interviewee said he had created another business to fund journalism, which he called “a loss-making entity called journalism”. Many rely on grants and fellowships, which are considered largely unreliable due to sporadic availability.
Survey data underlines weakness. In the pre-interview survey, only four of the 18 interviewees said they were completely 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 subscriptions, often seen as the heart of independent media in other markets, are widely seen as less viable by South African interviewees. Many said that 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.
Several interviewees said that despite combining multiple revenue streams, they struggle to pay their bills, with some saying they do not earn any meaningful income from their indie brand. One interviewee clearly captured the existential concern behind the business question by asking: “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 pursuing ethical journalism that meets local information needs while upholding global standards. Although some see them as part of a fragmented “alternative” ecosystem that can undermine trust and increase misinformation, the report shows that South African providers interviewed do not fit into that trope.
Instead, many actively resist fragmentation by placing their work within the broader media ecosystem. They build relationships with established newsrooms through broadcast appearances, republishing, and co-hosting programs, and for most interviewees, freelance work and indie branding are interconnected parts of the same professional identity. They appear to understand their audiences more clearly than their American counterparts, consider audience feedback as useful input and draw on conversations, analysis, performance data and observations to shape their reporting.
Their credibility depends not only on sourcing and fact-checking, but also on presence, engagement, and community trust. Interviewees emphasized “getting on the ground” to respond to messages, attend events, and understand local realities, while also acknowledging the costs: harassment, toxic comments, misogyny, racism, and heavy reliance on opaque platform algorithms. These pressures do not keep indie providers on the margins of journalism; They make them central to debates about the public role of journalism, as they test new responses to the same crises facing traditional media.
The report's strongest lesson is not that indie providers will completely replace well-resourced newsrooms. They won't. Nor should they be romanticized as a cure for South Africa's media crisis. But they show there is still a hunger among the public for reliable, useful and locally based information. They also show that the future of journalism may not be defined just by institutions, but also by relationships: between journalists and communities, creators and audiences, freelancers and newsrooms, local stories and global contexts.
Then again, the question is not whether indie information providers belong in South Africa's information ecosystem. They already do. The more pressing question is whether the media industry, funders, platforms and audiences can help create the conditions in which independent, credible and locally rooted information work can survive.
If South African 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 where there is still unequal access to voice, representation and reliable information, their work demands serious attention. They are not just content creators borrowing from journalism. They are part of a broader rethinking of who informs the public, whose stories are worth telling, and what kind of media can survive in the interval between institutional decline and democratic necessity.
saif ali is a senior program manager for Code for Africa's research unit at CivicSignal, and a data scientist for civic intelligence and media monitoring. Additionally, he leads research and technology initiatives at PROTO.