Georgina Henry Award for Digital Innovation

‘Journalism should always have an audience at the very core of it, and social media – perhaps more than any other medium at the moment – forces us to take that very seriously.’

That Sophia Smith Galer needs little industry introduction is evident in the success of the recent launch of her video script writing app, Sophiana: just two weeks in, the direct to consumer tool was already being used in 75 countries.

Two years ago, Reuters described Galer as “an authority on how journalists and news organisations can use TikTok to research stories, reach younger audiences and build relationships.”

Now, we could add tech and media developer to her credentials. Because Galer has invested competition prize money to develop an app that will alleviate the biggest pain point for content creators: writing script for video.

It sounds simple. But anyone who’s ever worked on script development, long- or short-form, would know that this painstaking process is a skill honed through time – which working journalists don’t have in abundance.

Sophiana gives traditional journalists, more familiar with text-based formats,  a jumpstart into the vertical, video-first environment.

Crucially for its developer, Sophiana offers a solution to the  significant problem of declining news audiences by enabling  journalists to amplify – even monetise – their work on social media.

“In order to get our journalism seen, we have to adopt some of the tactics of influencers and content creators,” asserts Galer. ”Sophiana is an attempt to marry these two worlds in the way that I have done for the past six years, growing a big community around my reporting.”

Now with nearly a million combined followers on TikTok and Instagram (558 000+ on TikTok alone), Galer kicked off her journalism career as social media editor at the BBC, amassing a global following after a sea shanty she composed about a ship stuck in the Suez Canal went viral.

I wrote a Suez sea shanty and I have no regrets pic.twitter.com/ExXcEKlUb3

— Sophia Smith Galer (@sophiasgaler) March 27, 2021

She then spent two years as senior news reporter for Vice World News, before going freelance, then independent, with the launch of her digital consultancy Viralect.

She’s garnered several prestigious awards, prizes and recognition along the way, including Innovation of the Year prize at the British Journalism Awards 2021the Georgina Henry Award for Digital Innovation run by Women in Journalism.

Galer has also been named by TIkTok as one of its 100 Voices of Change (2020), and by British Vogue as one of the most influential British women in journalism (2022).

She shared thoughts on and aspirations for the fractured news ecosystem in a chat with the World Editors Forum.

What is your perception of the news media landscape right now – and what is of concern?

“News publishers are now all over social media platforms, but individual journalists are not that mainstream. We know that brands, regardless of their industry, are deprioritised or social media platforms. Survey data from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shows that mainstream news brands are not really the go-to accounts that audiences head for when they go on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram; they head for online influencers and personalities.

Since I first started making TikToks in 2019 I’ve been advocating that journalists need to become these online influencers and personalities.

We no longer live in a world where journalists can be expected to not self-produce; we have to be multimedia. You do have to learn how to make video content, and you can’t rely on a producer or someone else helping you.

That’s not the future of our industry. It was never my reality.

My first jobs were always as a self-producing one-woman band – and that is increasingly going to be the future of our industry. As individuals, we need to be responsible for helping our own work get amplified on social media.

‘We were used to amplifying our own work on Twitter because it was very easy and the ecosystem suited us. Now the ecosystem is not made for us. Rather than just bowing out, we need to muck in.’

What are your biggest learnings from years as a content creator?

It’s all about consistency; not giving up. You’re not going to build a community around your work overnight. You’re not going to build a community if you ignore algorithmic changes, your competitors, or the biggest storytellers on these platforms.

You have to regularly be in communion with your audience, and that means making videos every week.

The biggest learning really, is that this is a service that I am providing.

And like any other service I provide, off platform, it’s got to be high quality, got to be engaging, and it has to deliver something that’s useful to the viewer. It really has to suit the audience’s needs.

Journalism should always have an audience at the very core of it, and social media, perhaps more than any other medium at the moment, forces us to take that very seriously.

It’s where journalists and newsrooms do not hold our own; we don’t sit at the top of the hierarchy, and therefore we are subject to other forces.

You’re a visible face, at a time when there are deep concerns about influencers and disinformation – how can news creators distance themselves from this?

I see a lot of fault with journalists here. I don’t see the fault of news creators. Journalists have not been saturating these platforms where misinformation has been proliferating. Why not? It’s a moral responsibility and duty of us to do so. News creators who may not have journalistic training that prioritise these platforms have had to step in, frankly, where journalists haven’t, in making sure that high quality information can be heard and seen in these spaces.

The creative economy is already lucrative and expected to grow exponentially – how do creators, subject to algorithms, safeguard themselves?

Up to this point they’ve just had to stay very agile and keep future-proofing themselves against all of these changes. Just staying aware, basically, of platform business models, and shifting accordingly. Some platform business models are not ideal or desirable for people who want to share high quality information but you have to be agile and follow the audiences – that’s quite clear.

Sophiana was developed with prize funding – how easy is it for creators to access development finance?

We wouldn’t be having this interview if Women in Journalism, UK and the International Center for Journalists hadn’t offered those prizes. Equally, none of this would have happened without Leo J Barnettthe designer who helped me develop this tool.

There aren’t loads of opportunities for technologists and journalists to meet and network, come up with ideas.

‘People like Leo and I shouldn’t be meeting by coincidence; we should be meeting because there’s a healthy infrastructure where like-minded people can connect and create solutions.’

Sofiana is a solution to a significant problem, and there are loads of innovators who are expert in different parts of the news industry, who have come up with ideas for that, but won’t even know where to get started, because they don’t know the right people; they don’t know the right competitions to enter to win prizes with money attached…

Just the amount of sort of self-starting that I have needed to do to get this going is considerable and was only possible because I was, basically, a successful journalist.

Realities lie behind it.

Earlier this year, I was in a conversation that comprised high profile journalism funders, who were asked whether they funded independent news creators. And their response was: “Well, we fund independent news organisations.” So, that means no.

I understand why individuals are not given funding – but my message to anyone with funding is to support independent creators, and not only news organisations – support individuals.

What’s next for you and Sophiana?

The music I’ve been hearing from newsrooms is that there is an interest for in-house Sophianas; these would include additional features built specifically for newsrooms.

This would really help newsrooms in future proofing by building communities and I would love this because I want the journalism industry and news media to survive.

It’s important to us, and getting on social media is existential. So I’m hopeful that maybe some partnerships can be built.

I am also hopeful that soon we can expand to Android, because she’s currently iOS; only available on iPhone – and that she could be multilingual, as I speak four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Italian), and Sophiana should speak all of the languages.

What is most important to you in terms of how journalists approach this fractured news ecosystem?

An incredible journalist and influential lecturer who I really admire in the UK, Martin Lewiswas talking about how he does very well, but how they aren’t able to have lots more Martin Lewises because of systemic problems within the infrastructure of the media in the UK, and he finished his speech by saying: “I would bloody love some competition,” – ie, he shouldn’t be the only person doing that.

‘And I am not the only journalist doing news videos. I have many colleagues. It’s more that there should be way, way, way more of us. I, too, would like more competition.’

Listen: Sophia Smith Galer: How to make the truth go viral [Alan Rusbridger, Lionel Barber, Media Confidential]