This German investigative outlet created a newsroom of teenagers. Here’s what they learnt from them

News brands are trying to meet young audiences where they are. That’s why traditional reporters can be seen on TikTok and Instagram, promoting their work in short video formats and trying to reach digital natives who don’t go to traditional outlets for news.  

Let’s take the German nonprofit newsroom Correctiv, a respected investigative outlet whose journalists published this hard-hitting scoop that sparked huge pro-democracy protests around Germany. In 2020 they created Salon5, a newsroom aiming to deliver news to young people. 

Unlike other news organisations, Salon5 truly produces news content that’s made for teenagers, by teenagers. Funded by the support of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and the RAG Foundation, the reporters are volunteers aged 13-18 who choose their own hours and are trained and guided by a team of adult journalists. 

On average, the team produces at least one social media post and one podcast episode every day for Salon5 digital channels. They also produce one podcast each day. Teens go to the newsroom after school and they set the agenda: they pitch, research, and produce content. The goal is to help young people develop journalistic skills, while also bringing them closer to journalism by seeing themselves reflected in the news output. 

To learn more about Correctiv’s youth newsroom, delivering news for young people, media literacy and more, I spoke with Steffen Ludwig, Salon5’s adult deputy editor-in-chief. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity. 

Q. How does Salon5 operate? 

A. Salon5 is a place where teenagers can come together and publish their own content. It’s journalism from teenagers for teenagers. They can come to the office in Bottrop and bring their ideas about topics. 

Then, there’s the team of Salon5: we support the teenagers to publish their own content, their own videos, their own podcasts. We show them how to do research, how to do a script, how to be in front of the camera or the microphone, and then how to cut it and how to produce the final product. The teenagers are always the main actors. We are in the background and support them to publish their own stuff.

Q. What are the topics teens are most interested in talking about?

A. They tend to be topics that deal with the perspective of people their age. One of the most important topics is school, because most of the time they are in school. But there are all those topics referring to being a teenager: relationships, friendship, sex, etc. Climate and politics used to be bigger topics, but they are not that big anymore. 

Sometimes, teenagers start here and they are not really interested in politics, but during their work here, they get more and more interested because they see how it really influences their lives. During their work here, if they are, for example, doing research about schooling, they see that politics are related to it and they see all the problems and solutions: how we can improve the school system in Germany and in their own city. 

Q. What does political coverage for teenagers look like? 

A. We do a lot of political content, but it’s very important for us that we have two dimensions. 

On the one hand, we want them to actually cover politics. For example, there were elections this year in Germany. We interviewed all the candidates for mayor in Bottrop and there we talked a lot about youth issues. We don’t care about parking spots for cars. It’s not important for teenagers. But we talked about how they want to improve school buildings or how they want to improve the public transport system, for example. So that's one perspective we have: always talk about topics which are important for teenagers.

The other side is explaining politics. For example, you have to put two crosses on the federal parliamentary elections and then you have to do up to seven crosses for the local elections. It’s not that easy to understand what I am voting for, which cross means what, and everything, so it’s very important to explain how politics work. 

So we go a step back and try to explain: how does this work? We try to explain it so that the teenagers understand why the election is important, how they can vote, how they can inform themselves and get information about the candidates and the parties. 

Q. What kind of editorial controls do you apply to the teenagers' content?

A. We have a few measures of editorial control. First of all, the teenagers have a team member who supports them during the whole process. They can ask them for support during research, scripting or producing. But then the real process starts. 

Our editor checks the product’s language, structure and journalistic standards. Then one person on our team does a fact-check. Teenagers prepare for this process by saving their sources while researching and scripting. In the end, the editor does the second fact-check to finalise the process. 

We have a well-oiled operation so that our teens learn how quality journalism and good research works. But of course it should still be the teens’ product. It’s a collaborative process where we work on the product as a team with the teens. 

Q. Do volunteers go on to become journalists? 

A. I don’t have numbers on this. Not every teenager who is part of the programme wants to be a journalist in the future. For some of them, Salon5 is just like a place to be, to relax, to chill, to meet friends. For others, it’s like a place to voice their opinion. Others use it as an education programme for being a journalist in the future. 

Some of them have gone on to train as journalists at Corretiv or other outlets. We have some who now don’t do anything with politics or journalism anymore, but we also have people who want to be part of the young wings of political parties. They started being reporters here, got informed about their community, and then they decided that maybe they don’t want to be journalists but politicians. 

Q. The youth newsroom encompasses young people from the ages of 13 to 18. These are not part of Gen Z, now approaching 30. These are even younger than that, what’s now called Gen Alpha. From what you’ve seen, how does this even younger generation differ from Gen Z?

A. When Salon5 started, we were also focused on Gen Z. So, for example, in the beginning we just did podcasts and then Instagram. Now, of course, TikTok is way more important because all the teenagers use it. We see the progression: social media is getting less important in their lives, but they are still using it to get information. So we see video content, and especially TikTok content, is very important. This is the way we want to try to get to them and to report about topics, via videos on TikTok. 

But I think we need to differentiate the goals we have. Our main focus is the teenagers who are participating in Salon5. We are an editorial office, but we are also an educational program where we show them how to research and find information, so it is more about media literacy as a whole. Of course, we publish content on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms, but that’s the next goal. We also do workshops in schools. We have those three parts: active, participating teenagers; the content we do on platforms to inform more teenagers; and media literacy with our workshops in schools and other youth groups.

Q. Our research at the Reuters Institute shows that young people rely more on social media and now on AI chatbots to get their news than any other generation. How big of an issue is this for media literacy?

A. I wouldn’t say media literacy is worse in teenagers than in adults. But they get their news differently. Sometimes people can’t differentiate if a video is real or AI, for example. But teenagers are more skilled than older people and more likely to spot the difference. 

Nonetheless, it’s very difficult. For example, if you use AI chatbots, they hallucinate, they invent things, and they equally weigh serious sources with opinion. So I think that’s why it’s very important for teenagers, but also for all people, to learn more about media literacy, to get skilled and to evaluate information in this digital environment.

Q. Many news brands are trying to attract young audiences. What I find interesting with Salon5 is that teenagers are the ones on camera. How important is it for young people to people like them in the news?

A. This is the most important thing. Social media is getting less social, but it is still easier to follow an influencer or an individual who talks about the news rather than a newsroom. You don’t have the same personal connection with a media brand. 

We don’t have one single host. We have a lot of hosts, but it’s authentic. So you know that it’s real, that it fits the topics. It’s better to have a teenager talk about schooling issues than an adult, because the teenager is part of the story.

But there’s also another thing: teenagers like being active producers. They are getting way more informed if they produce their own content instead of just using it in a bubble and just scroll down. If you produce your own stuff, you do research, you write a script, you produce it with a camera or a microphone, you are way more into it and you get more out of it. 

Q. Our research has shown that young people are more likely to be news avoiders compared to older cohorts. Do young people care about the news?

A. I would say they care about the news, but maybe they have a different definition of news. In the past, you were raised sitting with your parents watching the evening TV news together. Then, in the morning there was breakfast and there was a newspaper on the table. That’s not the reality anymore. 

This new world is difficult for media houses. On the one hand, it’s tough to share important information with this cohort. On the other hand, it’s tough to do it in the way it should be told to teenagers. It’s not that easy to do this because the products media houses present are a contrast to what teenagers want to see.

Q. What have you and your team learnt from the teens that could be useful for Correctiv?  

A. The biggest thing we have learned is empowering and incorporating the teens in the whole process. Teenagers are most interested in content that’s about topics they are interested in, suggested by themselves, researched by themselves and if people in their same age group are the hosts of podcasts and videos.

It’s important not just to talk about young people. It’s important to talk with them. Do journalism with teenagers for teenagers. I know this intensive caring and supporting process we do is not possible for every news outlet. But they can definitely try to talk to young audiences, to do interviews with them, and publish their topics and their voices.