Throughout this 5-month program, creators will get support and training to test different ways to demonstrate their credibility to their audiences.
Meet the 10 creator journalists selected to join Trusting News’ Creator Credibility Cohort
Trusting News is excited to share the creator journalists selected to participate in a research program to test how they can demonstrate credibility to their audiences.
Throughout this five-month program, these creator journalists will experiment with ways to signal credibility to their audience. The strategies will cover topics such as who the journalists are, why they are credible, their sourcing, their funding and the ethics and integrity that drive their work. Creators will be coached by Trusting News and will also gain access to the support and expertise of the Project C community.
We’re working alongside a team of researchers across two universities: Cydney Grannan and Dr. Ariel Hasell at the University of Michigan and Dr. Benjamin Toff at the University of Minnesota.
This program is made possible thanks to funding from Vesta Foundry and the Alliance for Trust in Media.
Meet the independent creator journalists
These 10 creators will participate in the program, publishing short-form videos with transparency strategies attached. They will also attach research to what they share in order to measure audience response. Each participating creator will receive $4,000 for participating.
Natalie Bencivenga, MSW, is an award-winning independent journalist, media entrepreneur and consultant who founded Benci Productions. Her work focuses on national and local issues impacting lives and shaping communities. She hosts and executive produces Facts Over Fear, a podcast examining the facts behind today’s most consequential issues, and hosts and produces Week in Focus for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. She recently hosted and executive produced Destination with Natalie Bencivenga, a WQED docuseries highlighting the vital role of immigrants in communities. Bencivenga is a mid-Atlantic Emmy nominee, 2025 Aggie Award recipient and was selected as one of 10 independent journalists nationwide for Project C’s 2026 Creator Cohort. Her Facts Over Fear series won a 2024 Keystone Media Award and she was chosen as Pittsburgh Magazine’s 40 under 40 in 2020. She has hosted programs for KDKA radio, Pittsburgh City Paper and PublicSource and more.
Becky Bullard is the founder and CEO of Democrasexy. Democrasexy produces content and events to demystify Texas politics and infuse joy and optimism into the work of advocating for women and queer folks. Becky has served as an Election Judge, a Precinct Chair, and Chair of the City of Austin’s Commission for Women. She has emceed events for many progressive organizations. She was named one of the “Best Texans of 2024” by Progress Texas, was a 2025 News Creator Corps “Trusted Creator” fellow, and is the Grand Prize winner of the 2026 Next Challenge for Media & Journalism. She is launching a new podcast, The Texan Optimist, on September 23, which will highlight the stories of Texans who made radical progress for all of America. She is a single mom living in Austin, TX, and her two daughters tell people, “Our mom likes to wear sequins and help more people vote.”
Chase Cain is a meteorologist and three-time Emmy Award winner. Soon after becoming the first climate reporter for NBC News, he earned a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for his reporting on how climate change is threatening California’s beloved Joshua trees. Now, Chase has traded the legacy news desk for the global reach of YouTube to lead an honest conversation about our relationship with our environment. His new series Chase What Matters explores everything from nature and extreme weather to our “inner weather” — how reconnecting with nature will heal us and the planet!
Chelsea Cox is a Philadelphia-based creator, journalist and civic storyteller whose work lives at the intersection of local government, political systems, data, and civic participation and what it all means for Philadelphia communities. Through short-form video explainers and data-informed reporting, she translates the public decisions shaping everyday life into content everyday people can actually use. Chelsea is the founder of C2 Civic Media and Executive Director of A Seat at the Table Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on voter education and civic engagement. She is a Philly Media Founders Exchange Fellow and a member of the Trusting News Journalist Advisory Committee. Her content reaches audiences who have historically been left out of civic conversations and brings them directly to the table.”
Andrew Dunn is an award-winning journalist and political columnist based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He spent a decade covering local government, education, and banking for The Charlotte Observer and later served as editor-in-chief and partner at Charlotte Agenda (now Axios Charlotte), helping shape the city’s civic conversation. He is the founder of Longleaf Politics, a newsletter on state government widely read by policymakers, and is a contributing columnist for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer, where he writes about state and local governance and public policy.
Kevin Foster is an independent investigative journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He covers activism, immigration, government accountability, and democracy. His video/audio/written work focused on people and how they’re impacted by policy and state violence can be found in Mother Jones, It Could Happen Here, Truthout, and more.
Rahim Jessani is a creator journalist and founder of Bottom Up Boston, an independent creator newsroom based in Boston. A graduate of Boston College, his reporting covers marginalized communities nationwide, working alongside community members and creator journalists to elevate undercovered voices and help rebuild trust in journalism through accessible, community-driven storytelling for Gen Z audiences. He also consults for news organizations on how to reach young audiences through creator journalism, helping solve for online “content deserts.”
Celia Montoya is an independent bilingual journalist based in Arizona, covering migration and culture along the Sonora-Arizona border. She reports from inside the communities she covers, in Spanish, working to rebuild trust eroded by misinformation and disinformation. She produces a weekly cultural segment for Conecta Arizona and writes narrative and investigative stories focused on bringing news closer to the people it affects.
Amber Sherman is a native Memphian and a graduate of Hodges University with a Master of Legal Studies degree, Summa Cum Laude. She is a nationally known policy organizer, strategist, and creator-journalist who enjoys using her voice and platform to inspire her peers and the next generation. She has been featured in several national publications such as The NY Times, MSNBC, The Washington Post, CBS, and Vice News.
Kat Tenbarge is an independent journalist and founder of the newsletter Spitfire News. She covers social media, pop culture, and politics through a feminist lens. Previously, she worked at NBC News and Business Insider. She also has a YouTube channel and her work has been published at WIRED, The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and more.
We’ll share what we learn
In cohorts like these, Trusting News collects information from the creators and their audiences to better understand how trust is built between the two. We use what we learn to create training resources, share insights and support journalists. (Learn more about how we use data here.)
If you’re interested in staying in the loop about the learnings and work of this cohort, subscribe to Trusting News’ weekly Trust Tips newsletter, follow Trusting News on LinkedIn, or reach out directly to project lead Mollie Muchna at mollie@trustingnews.org.
At Trusting News, we learn how people decide what news to trust and turn that knowledge into actionable strategies for journalists. We train and empower journalists to take responsibility for demonstrating credibility and actively earning trust through transparency and engagement. Learn more about our work, vision and team. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. Follow us on Twitter, BlueSky and LinkedIn.
Project manager Mollie Muchna (she/her) has spent the last 10 years working in audience and engagement journalism in local newsrooms across the Southwest. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism. She can be reached at mollie@trustingnews.org and on Twitter @molliemuchna.
