Since launching in September 2025, more than 600 creators have applied for one of News Creator Corps’ fellowship programs. That's a significant dataset, and analyzing their applications can tell us a lot about the landscape news creators are working in right now. We looked at how applicants answered the question about their biggest challenge and found 11 recurring themes from misinformation and monetization to burnout, AI, and safety. Here are a few findings that stood out:

Misinformation and trust is the number one concern. 57% of applicants named it. As one creator wrote: "The biggest challenge facing creators today is not simply visibility or monetization—but the growing sense that truth no longer matters online. We are operating in an ecosystem where viral misinformation, coordinated bad actors, and increasingly sophisticated AI have eroded public trust."

Unsurprisingly, science creators have the highest misinformation concern of any topic group.

AI is the fastest-growing concern. In less than a year, concerns about AI grew more than 7x in our applications. Newsletter creators are nearly three times more likely to cite AI as a challenge than creators on other platforms, likely because AI-generated content is a more direct threat to their format.

Mental health is a challenge regardless of whether you do this full time. Full-time and part-time creators cite burnout at nearly identical rates, which tells us this isn't just about workload. It's about the emotional weight of the work itself. LGBTQ-focused creators have the highest burnout rate in our data. The pressure to post fast is wearing on creators across the board.

Safety and harassment hit hardest on TikTok. TikTok creators are twice as likely to name safety or harassment as a concern compared to creators on Instagram. Creators covering national politics, race, and gender face more targeted online harassment—something our Creator Safety Initiative is designed to address.

Rural creators are feeling the local news vacuum. Their concerns were remarkably similar to our flagship fellowship applicants in most areas, but they named the lack of local newspapers, broadband gaps, and a general absence of accessible information as real challenges in a way that more urban creators did not.

Lifestyle creators have a bit more breathing room. Food, beverage, and travel creators show lower overall challenge intensity across most themes, likely due to less combative community dynamics.

What strikes me most looking at this data is how interconnected these challenges are. Misinformation erodes trust, which makes the work harder, which leads to burnout, which is compounded by harassment—especially for creators covering the topics that matter most.

When the same pain points show up across hundreds of applications, it tells us these are infrastructure problems. Building shared resources like safety guides, mental health support, and verification tools means no single creator has to solve these challenges alone, and the investment goes further because the infrastructure serves everyone. This is exactly why NCC focuses on building durable infrastructure to support creators and make their work more sustainable. Creators may feel like a trend, but trusted community messengers aren't going anywhere, and we plan to have their backs for the long haul.

We hosting a cocktail party on July 14 in Brooklyn that features a conversation with creator Eliza Orlins, a silent auction, and plenty of fun surprises. It’s a fun night out with friends that supports the trusted voices in your feed. Grab your ticket before we reach capacity.