Expanding reach and impact through video

BUILDING A PROGRAM ALREADY IN MOTION

For the past year, Floodlight’s award-winning investigative producer Evan Simon has expanded our accountability journalism into video, dramatically growing our reach. Now, we are building on that success, ensuring video is an integral component of all our projects. 

Our video program so far has centered around long-form journalism and two recent productions show what it can deliver: a 20-minute investigation into Montana's Yellowstone Club, reported in partnership with High Country News and featured nationally on MS NOW, and a 21-minute AI data center collaboration with PBS that reached 3.3 million viewers. 

Our plan is to deepen and broaden that reach. We will bring horizontal video to the stories we currently pursue mainly in text, and we will create more short-form content from that body of work to distribute to people who care not just about climate change, but about rising household costs, food and product safety, air pollution and corporate abuse. We’ll meet them in the format they use, with the subjects that resonate with them. 

Other newsrooms are putting their reporters on camera to describe written stories. And other climate communicators are drafting messaging briefs and paying an army of influencers to try to convince people to care. We are filling a third gap. 

We’re starting with high quality video, not adding it on after the fact. And we’re digging up compelling, original stories ourselves — talking to people on the ground and bringing journalistic rigor to narratives that are locally relevant and nationally resonant.

SCALING OUR PARTNER MODEL TO VIDEO

At Floodlight, video isn’t just an additional format, it’s a reporting and engagement technique. We were the first newsroom to use a thermal drone to reveal the unchecked pollution fueling data centers, giving communities a visual to understand the scale of what is happening in their backyards. That footage has now been licensed dozens of times. Universities are screening our documentaries. And community members are renting local theaters to showcase our reporting as officials consider letting AI companies set up shop in their towns. 

So far, we’ve focused our video efforts mainly on YouTube, turning it into a long-term distribution partner, the same way Floodlight treats its 500+ local and national newsroom partners that publish our text stories: a place where our journalism reaches diverse audiences, not simply a subscriber-count pursuit. But with a bigger video team, we can exponentially expand the reach of this reporting.

We aren’t abandoning our old model. We know our news partners need our videos, too. We've produced multiple reels with local newsrooms, including the Louisiana Illuminator, New York Focus and High Country News, offering them broadcast-quality footage they couldn’t otherwise produce. Local newsrooms are under pressure to pivot to video platforms, but they’re expected to do it without a crew, editors or budget. Our text stories have augmented their investigative coverage and our videos will boost their audience engagement.

But to do this at scale, we need to expand our team to: 

• increase our filming and production pace
• integrate video into every investigation 
• cut long-form investigations and field footage into short vertical content
• grow and understand audiences across platforms
• coordinate video partnerships with other outlets, independent journalists, creators and community groups
• keep editorial standards intact across all outputs

AUDIENCES HAVE ALREADY MOVED TO VIDEO. FLOODLIGHT IS MEETING THEM THERE.

Audiences have already moved to video, creating an opening for trustworthy investigative reporting to reach them in a way — and at a scale — it never has before.

77% of people worldwide watch online news video every week — more than watch broadcast TV news in 45 of 48 countries1

54% of people globally now get news via social media and video networks — for the first time surpassing news organizations' own sites and apps1

52% of 18–24-year-olds worldwide say social media, video, and AI are their main source of news1

For the first time, social media and video networks are used by more people worldwide for news than television or news organizations' own websites and apps combined. Video consumption on publishers' own sites and apps actually fell 5 percentage points this past year; all of the growth is happening on third-party platforms. Even The New York Times, with 13.3 million subscribers, told investors this summer that "long-term bets" on video are essential to its future, and the organization is currently hiring for a dozen video-focused roles.

Much of that growth is happening in vertical feeds, which means short-form is now part of how any investigation reaches its full audience. We're treating it as a distribution channel for stories we're already producing: the same reporting, meeting people in the feeds they're already scrolling.

Our long-form reporting is already primed for short-form. Our reporters are on camera in the field, so audiences can see who's doing the work and why, which is the kind of authentic first-person presence that vertical feeds reward.

JOURNALISM AND TRUST STILL WIN

Audiences are watching more video from more voices — but they are not abandoning judgment. Reuters Institute research finds that only 3% of people globally rely solely on independent creators for news; the vast majority treat creator content as a complement to, not a replacement for, trusted reporting. 

That is Floodlight's opening: deliver the editorial quality our investigative journalism is known for, in the video format audiences now expect — without becoming an advocacy shop or an influencer-for-hire operation.

And we have the track record to pull this off.

500+ partner outlets have run Floodlight investigations across 47 states, with 80% of local pickups in red-state communities most climate coverage never touches.

3.3 million viewers watched a single Floodlight–PBS YouTube collaboration — evidence of the scale video already delivers for Floodlight's reporting.

Real-world accountability: Floodlight's reporting led to a Fortune 500 utility CEO's departure and a $150 million shareholder settlement, an $8.8 million EPA commitment to test wood-stove pollution, and new port pollution fees in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Our journalism has reach and impact. It is just as likely to appear in a lawsuit or in the congressional record as it is to show up in a reel from a content creator with hundreds of thousands of followers. Our video program will scale this success.

WHAT THIS INVESTMENT BUILDS

Floodlight is seeking $700,000 per year in committed, multi-year support to expand its $1.3 million budget to fully integrate video into the newsroom. This includes four key roles that expand the video program already underway: 

Video editor / graphics artist. They will assist on shoots with Evan and also run their own with our other two investigative reporters, ensuring we have short-form documentaries and vertical video content across all stories. Their editing skills will expedite large projects and their graphics will help us explain complex subjects in engaging ways.

Social and vertical video producer. They will focus entirely on producing short-form content, from ongoing investigations, as well as our archive. They will execute a platform-specific strategy that turns clips into YouTube, Instagram and TikTok followers, readers and supporters.

Audience strategist. Reporting to Floodlight's director of audience & partnerships, they will own subscriber and audience growth strategy across platforms, including segmentation, paid promotion and building and coordinating video partnerships with other outlets and creators.

Deputy investigative editor. They will work with our editor-in-chief to safeguard accuracy and editorial independence as video output scales across every reporter's beat, and help build the process for designing video into story scoping from day one.

+ Increased travel, freelance and advertising budgets. While text-based reporting can be done remotely, video work cannot. Our staff will be traveling more, and we will rely on local crew, contract fact-checkers and independent journalists. We will also work with third party experts that closely monitor social media trends and best practices to ensure we have the most current strategies and tactics to reach new and existing audiences.

This approach anchors our video program in the newsroom — keeping it in the hands of our own reporters, based on our own relationships and our own distribution muscle, across horizontal and vertical formats alike.