Media in the Margins

In Episode 10 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Benjamin Haug-Toklum, a second-year photojournalism student at OsloMet, about what happens when news is compressed into TikTok format.

Benjamin’s research examines how Norwegian national media outlets — NRK, TV 2, VG, and Dagbladet — adapt news stories for TikTok and how those videos compare with the corresponding written articles. His findings suggest that TikTok news is often more compressed, visually driven, emotionally framed, and focused on conflict or human-interest elements. That can make news more accessible for younger audiences, but it can also reduce nuance, source diversity, and contextual understanding.

The episode explores short-form video, visual journalism, platform-native storytelling, creator news, NRK’s public-service role, commercial calls to action, Vær Varsom-plakaten, PFU, AI, and why photojournalism may become more important in a media environment where synthetic content is easier to produce. At its center, this episode asks whether news organizations can reach young audiences on TikTok without narrowing their understanding of reality.

GUEST BIO
Benjamin Haug-Toklum is a second-year photojournalism student at OsloMet whose work examines how news is shaped and understood through short-form video. He is also developing documentary work through the Documentary Norway course, including a project in Tromsø focused on tourism and visual representation.

SELECT LINKS
OsloMet — Photojournalism: https://www.oslomet.no/en/study/tkd/photojournalism
NRK: https://www.nrk.no/
TV 2 Nyheter: https://www.tv2.no/nyheter/
VG: https://www.vg.no/
Dagbladet: https://www.dagbladet.no/
Dylan Page / News Daddy — TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dylan.page

Norwegian ethics note: Vær Varsom-plakaten is the ethical code for editor-controlled media in Norway and is administered through Norsk Presseforbund. PFU — Pressens Faglige Utvalg — handles complaints and assesses whether media outlets have breached good press practice. In public-facing materials, explain this briefly for international audiences.

For full show notes, references, guest links, ethical statement, AI usage statement, research notes, transcript annotations, and corrections/updates, visit:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

Accuracy notes: The transcript appears to contain several automated transcription errors. Corrections noted in the show notes as discovered.

Mentioned media outlets and sources are not endorsements.

The described research is a limited study showing a pattern, and additional research is needed in this area.

What can journalism learn from independent design publishing?

In Episode 09 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Lars Harmsen, co-founder of Slanted Publishers and Slanted Magazine, about independent publishing, design authorship, censorship, AI, print culture, and the future of visual media.

Lars is an award-winning German graphic designer, typographer, publisher, professor, and creative director. He teaches typography and editorial design at Fachhochschule Dortmund — University of Applied Sciences and Arts, co-founded Slanted Publishers, and works as creative director and partner at Melville Brand Design.

This conversation asks whether independent design publishing can function as journalism — not necessarily investigative journalism, but as documentation, curation, authorship, public archiving, and cultural witnessing.

For full show notes, references, guest links, ethical statement, AI usage statement, research notes, transcript annotations, and corrections/updates, visit:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

GUEST BIO
Lars Harmsen is an award-winning German graphic designer, typographer, publisher, professor, and co-founder of Slanted Publishers and Slanted Magazine. He is Professor for Concept and Design / Typography and Layout at Fachhochschule Dortmund — University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and he is also a creative director and partner at Melville Brand Design in Munich. His work spans typography, editorial design, publishing, visual culture, branding, design education, and contemporary design criticism. Through Slanted Publishers, Harmsen has helped build an independent publishing platform that documents international design scenes through books, magazines, online publishing, events, lectures, and a large archive of video interviews with designers and cultural figures.

SELECTED LINKS
Lars Harmsen — official website: https://www.larsharmsen.de/
Lars Harmsen — Fachhochschule Dortmund profile: https://www.fh-dortmund.de/personen/Lars-Michael-Harmsen/index.php?loc=en-US
Lars Harmsen — Melville Brand Design profile: https://melvilledesign.de/lars-harmsen/
Slanted Publishers: https://www.slanted.de/
Slanted Publishers — Video Interviews: https://www.slanted.de/?s=video+interviews

This preview trailer brings together Episodes 5–10 of Media in the Margins, a video podcast and public-facing research project exploring creator journalism, independent media, trust, platform power, visual storytelling, labor, ethics, and the future of public knowledge.

Across these six episodes, Becky Beamer speaks with journalists, media founders, researchers, designers, publishers, students, and independent storytellers working across the edges of traditional media systems.

Featured episodes:

EP05 — Ford Fischer
**The Primary Source: Documenting Public Life Before Power Frames the Record**
Raw video, protest documentation, public events, platform moderation, and the role of primary-source journalism.

EP06 — Mollie Muchna
**The Trust Builder: How Journalism Earns Trust in Public**
Transparency, corrections, sourcing, AI disclosure, audience trust, and the credibility signals journalism needs to make visible.

EP07 — Dr. Toby Miller
**The Critical Witness: What Journalism Must Remember About Labor, Language, and the Planet**
Journalism’s future beyond the decline narrative, with attention to labor, language, environmental media, digital materiality, and gumshoe reporting.

EP08 — Carrie Regan
**The Founder Storyteller: What Media Becomes After the Institution**
From National Geographic to founder-led media: storytelling, trust, women founders, cultural communication, and the messy middle of building independent work.

EP09 — Lars Harmsen
**The Editorial Designer: Publishing, Censorship, and the Authorship of Design**
Independent publishing, Slanted Magazine, design authorship, censorship, AI, print culture, and the public knowledge role of editorial design.

EP10 — Benjamin Haug-Toklum
**The Platform Native: What Short-Form News Gives Us—and What It Takes Away**
TikTok news, visual framing, younger audiences, NRK, TV 2, VG, Dagbladet, source diversity, and the ethics of platform-native journalism.

Together, these episodes ask:

What happens to journalism when trust moves outside the institution?

What does independent media make possible?

What gets lost when journalism is compressed into platforms?

How do creators, journalists, designers, and educators build public knowledge in fragmented information systems?

And what must journalism remember before it gives up on itself?

Watch the full episodes on YouTube and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Full show notes, guest links, references, ethics statement, AI usage statement, transcript annotations, and corrections/updates are available here:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

This project treats journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes.

#MediaInTheMargins #Journalism #CreatorJournalism #IndependentMedia #TrustInMedia #MediaFutures #VisualJournalism #MediaLiteracy #AITransparency

In Episode 08 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Carrie Regan about what media becomes after the institution — when a storyteller trained in global television builds an independent, founder-led platform of her own.

Regan reflects on her years at National Geographic and Warner Bros. Discovery, her transition into entrepreneurship, and the launch of My Great Pivot, a podcast from The Female Founders Project featuring women who have left stability to build something new. The conversation explores storytelling, journalism, trust, audience-building, monetization, cultural communication, messy-middle entrepreneurship, and the difference between telling stories for a mass audience and building a niche platform that can survive.

At its center, this episode is about the founder as storyteller: the person who must create the story, the audience, the business model, and the trust structure at the same time.

GUEST BIO

Carrie Regan is a media strategist, producer, podcast host, and cross-cultural consultant with more than 25 years of experience developing global media content. She spent more than a decade at National Geographic Television and later worked across global production and collaboration contexts, including Warner Bros. Discovery. She now runs her own consulting work through Globally Minded and Global Content Strategies and hosts My Great Pivot, a podcast from The Female Founders Project featuring candid interviews with women who have reinvented themselves as founders and entrepreneurs. Her work sits at the intersection of legacy media production, entrepreneurial storytelling, cultural communication, audience trust, and founder-led media.

https://www.carrieregan.com/

FOR MORE INFORMATION, SHOW NOTES & DISCLOSURES

Ethics & Transparency - This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision.

Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:

https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

Profile image provided by: Carrie Regan

In Episode 07 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Dr. Toby Miller about journalism’s future through the lenses of labor, language, digital materiality, environmental consequence, and long-form public knowledge.

The episode opens with a provocation: “The golden age of journalism is over and there’s no hope… This is nonsense.” For Miller, journalism is not dying simply because legacy newsrooms in wealthy countries are shrinking. The larger picture is more complex. More people are literate than ever before, more people are seeking information across the world, and journalism continues to emerge through local reporting, independent media, foundation-supported investigations, peace journalism, social movements, and collective forms of public witnessing.

At its center, this episode is about witness: not only seeing and reporting, but remembering the labor behind media, the languages that shape stories, the planetary costs of digital production, and the communities that remain outside the screen. Miller calls for more gumshoe journalism, more language learning, more history, more sociology, more anthropology, and more journalism that reaches beyond the “online as the only truth.”

GUEST BIO

Dr. Toby Miller is an interdisciplinary social scientist, media theorist, author, and podcaster whose work spans cultural studies, journalism, political economy, environmental media studies, labor, sport, and global cultural production. As stated in the episode recording, he is Distinguished Professor in Media and Cultural Studies at Tecnológico de Monterrey and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author and editor of more than 50 books, including Why Journalism? A Polemic and How Green Is Your Smartphone?, and his newest co-authored book with Joan Pedro Carañana is Global Sports Go Green—Or Do They? Miller is also the creator and host of the long-running culturalstudies podcast, a noncommercial, long-form interview archive that has published more than 940 episodes and currently surfaces over 187,000 downloads on Podbean.

https://www.tobymiller.org/

FOR MORE INFORMATION, SHOW NOTES & DISCLOSURES

Ethics & Transparency
This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

Profile image provided by: Toby Miller

How do journalists earn trust in the public?

In Episode 06 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Mollie Muchna, project manager at @TrustingNews, about how journalism earns trust in the public.

Mollie Muchna turns trust into practice: transparency, corrections, sourcing, ethics, AI disclosure, and credibility signals that help audiences understand why journalism deserves trust and how to get it.

Mollie works with journalists and newsrooms to develop strategies for transparency, audience engagement, ethical clarity, and clearer communication. In this episode, she explains why journalists cannot assume that audiences understand how reporting works — or why they should trust it.

As more people encounter news through independent creators, newsletters, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, and other platform-native spaces, credibility has to be signaled clearly. Audiences need to know how information was gathered, what sources were used, how claims were verified, what the journalist’s mission is, and what ethical standards guide the work.

This conversation asks what journalism must explain about itself if it wants to survive in a fragmented, low-trust information ecosystem.

Full show notes, guest links, ethical statement, AI usage statement, research notes, references, transcript annotations, and corrections/updates are available here:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page/


Platform, Rights, and Disclosure Note:
This episode is an independent interview and educational media commentary produced for Media in the Margins. It is not sponsored, and no guest, organization, platform, or company paid for placement or editorial influence in this episode.

Profile image provided by: Mollie Muchna.

Guest Links
Mollie Muchna — Trusting News author page: https://trustingnews.org/author/mollie/

Trusting News — Resources: https://trustingnews.org/category/resources/

Trust Kits: https://medium.com/trusting-news/introducing-trust-kits-a-new-tool-for-journalists-to-simplify-earning-trust-86526436af7c

Trusting News — Show you’re trustworthy: An ethics checklist for creator journalists: https://trustingnews.org/show-youre-trustworthy-an-ethics-checklist-for-creator-journalists/

Creator Journalism Trust and Credibility Toolkit — Lenfest Institute: https://www.lenfestinstitute.org/solutions-resources/creator-journalism-trust-and-credibility-toolkit/

For full show notes, references, guest links, ethical statement, AI usage statement, research notes, and corrections/updates, visit: https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page/

In Episode 5 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Ford Fischer, independent journalist, filmmaker, co-founder of News2Share, and one of the clearest voices in primary-source documentary journalism.

Ford describes his work not as “neutral,” but as primary source documentation: raw videography and livestreaming that records events as they happen, without shaping the footage around his personal position. His work is about preserving evidence, context, and public memory.

The conversation explores how raw footage moves through the media ecosystem from livestreams and YouTube uploads to licensing by news outlets and documentary films. Ford also discusses demonetization, platform moderation failures, algorithmic misunderstanding of context, and the challenge of documenting political conflict in an attention economy that rewards personality over evidence.

Ford Fischer is an independent journalist, filmmaker, and co-founder/editor-in-chief of News2Share. Since 2014, he has specialized in primary-source video documentation of political activism, protest, civil unrest, and public conflict. His work is widely used by newsrooms, documentary filmmakers, and public-interest media. News2Share publishes raw video journalism and field documentation, and its official site lists Ford Fischer as a regular author and producer.

Primary-source documentary journalism
Raw footage as public evidence
Livestreaming and verification
Platform demonetization and context collapse
The difference between neutrality and taking no position
Independent field journalism and risk

News2Share: https://news2share.com/
News2Share YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbBm6SZ235HFxwVKC7Po5IA
Ford Fischer / News2Share profile and work: https://news2share.com/author/fordfischer/

Ethics & Transparency
This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

In Episode 4 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Liz Kelly Nelson, founder of Project C and co-developer of The Independent Journalism Atlas, about whether creator-led journalism is becoming a viable media system —or whether it remains a fragile, under-supported space.

Liz brings nearly 30 years of journalism experience, including leadership roles at AOL, The Washington Post, USA Today, Gannett, and Vox. In this conversation, she traces how talented journalists began leaving legacy institutions to build newsletters, YouTube channels, podcasts, and platform-native ventures not because journalism was dying, but because distribution, autonomy, and audience relationships were changing.

The episode focuses on the infrastructure gap: funding, business models, platform dependency, credibility standards, creator support systems, IP ownership, AI transparency, and the need for funders and institutions to recognize creator journalists as part of the future of public-interest media. Liz defines independent creator journalism as acts of journalism distributed across platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Substack, Beehiiv, Twitch, Reddit, and others, outside the umbrella of legacy news brands.

Liz Kelly Nelson is a journalist, educator, media strategist, founder of Project C, and co-founder of The Independent Journalism Atlas. Her work focuses on building sustainable infrastructure for independent, creator-led journalism. Project C describes itself as a research hub, community, and strategic home for journalists building audience-driven media ventures outside traditional institutions. The Independent Journalism Atlas identifies Nelson as co-founder and founder of Project C, with experience leading teams at Vox, USA Today, Gannett, and AOL.

Creator journalism as infrastructure
The business model problem
Why funders are interested but risk-averse
The Independent Journalism Atlas
Sustainability, standards, and credibility
AI use, disclosure, and audience trust

Project C: https://projectc.biz/
The Independent Journalism Atlas: https://journalismatlas.com/
Project C Newsletter: https://newsletter.projectc.biz/

Ethics & Transparency
This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

In Episode 3 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer speaks with Ben Camacho, an investigative journalist, documentary photographer, and producer whose work focuses on state-sanctioned violence, public records, and communities affected by police and state power.

This episode asks: What does independent investigative journalism look like when it is built outside legacy institutions — and when the government pushes back?

Ben discusses the lawsuit brought against him by the City of Los Angeles after he pursued public records connected to LAPD officer photographs. He explains why access to public records matters, how independent journalists can face institutional pressure, and why his outlet Inadvertent draws from the muckraking tradition.

The conversation also explores collaboration among independent journalists, documentary work, surveillance reporting, and the importance of trusting one’s judgment when working outside traditional newsroom structures.

Ben Camacho is a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, documentary photographer, and producer. His reporting focuses on state violence, public records, policing, and communities affected by state power. He founded Inadvertent, an independent investigative outlet; co-founded West Side Storytellers, an independent documentary production team; co-founded The Southlander; and has chaired the legal committee of the IWW Freelance Journalists Union. Public bios also identify him as the founder of Inadvertent and co-founder of West Side Storytellers.

Independent investigative reporting
Public records and police transparency
Muckraking as a living journalistic tradition
Government pressure on local reporters
Collaboration among independent journalists
Documentary photography and written investigation

Ben Camacho — official site: https://bencamacho.com/
Inadvertent: https://www.inadvertent.news/
West Side Storytellers: https://westsidestorytellers.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bencamach0/

IWW Freelance Journalists Union: https://freelancejournalistsunion.org

Ethics & Transparency
This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page

In Episode 2 of Media in the Margins, Becky Beamer talks with V Spehar, creator of Under the Desk News, about what happens when journalism is built directly for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and short-form video culture.

V explains how creator journalism mirrors traditional media with reporters, commentators, specialists, explainers, and public voices but removes the old gatekeeping structure. Instead of relying on a masthead to carry authority, independent journalists must build trust through storytelling, transparency, consistency, and direct accountability to audiences.

The conversation moves from platform-native news to ethics, mentorship, transparency statements, public values, and what it means to “perform the news” without turning journalism into empty performance. V also discusses why publishing ethics, funding information, mission statements, and red lines are not optional extras for creator journalists — they are part of becoming trustworthy.

V Spehar is an award-winning digital journalist, podcaster, and creator of Under the Desk News, a platform-native news project known for making current events more accessible, emotionally aware, and human. V has built a following of more than 4.7 million and has appeared across legacy outlets including CNN, NPR, and PBS. Their official site describes Under the Desk News as a project that makes news more human and accessible.

They go live daily, Mon-Thurs from 10-11:30am ET. Additionally, if you could link their Substack, that would be amazing!

Please find the links to each below:

• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4e3Gm46D6hWqVyjwkgS33g 
• https://underthedesknews.substack.com/ 

Platform-native journalism
Peer-to-peer authority rather than institutional authority
Why young audiences distrust traditional news formats
Transparency statements and public ethics
News as performance and its risks
Creator journalism as an ecosystem, not a single category

Under the Desk News: https://underthedesknews.com/
V Spehar / Under the Desk News Substack: https://underthedesknews.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/underthedesknews/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@underthedesknews

Ethics & Transparency
This episode is part of Media in the Margins, a public-facing research and journalism project. We treat journalism as an evolving process built through dialogue, transparency, and revision. Editorial control remains with the host and production team, and any corrections, updates, ethics notes, or source links will be documented in the show notes:
https://bleepbleepproductions.start.page