How The Salt Lake Tribune made the case to double its video team

This is the second post in a series highlighting how independent newsrooms are putting Civic Studio strategies into practice. Kyle Hansen, managing editor of audience and multimedia at The Salt Lake Tribune, shares how coaching and outside expertise helped his team strengthen its video strategy, build confidence in its work, and make the case for expanding its staff. Read our first post on how Bridge Michigan turned Instagram engagement into meaningful audience action.

Short-form video has become one of journalism’s most important ways to reach new audiences. But for many local newsrooms, investing in video means answering a difficult question: How do you justify expanding a team when there are countless places in your organization that could use investment?

As one of five newsrooms in News Revenue Hub’s inaugural Civic Studio cohort, The Salt Lake Tribune set out to answer that question. Working with Civic Studio coaches, the newsroom strengthened its social video strategy, refined its workflows, and ultimately built the case to double the size of its dedicated video team.

For Kyle Hansen, The Tribune’s managing editor of audience and multimedia, one of the program’s greatest benefits was access to experienced video leaders.

“It was really helpful to have access to experts,” he said. “That was the biggest help for us: getting feedback from people who have been in our shoes and know their stuff.”

One of those coaches was Micah Gelman, co-founder of LNI Media and former senior editor and head of video at The Washington Post. Meeting regularly with The Tribune team, Gelman reviewed analytics, discussed strategy, and offered something Hansen rarely had access to: an experienced outside perspective.

“To have that feedback loop is really important, especially in smaller organizations where there may be only one or two people who are doing the work,” Gelman said. In many traditional newsrooms, he explained, video leaders have few peers or mentors who understand the unique challenges they face.

Gelman said The Tribune already had a solid foundation in video storytelling. “Sometimes you know in your gut that you’re doing the right thing, but you don’t have that external validation.”

For Hansen, that outside perspective reinforced the team’s instincts and gave them confidence to continue investing in approaches they believed would reach new audiences.

Throughout Civic Studio, The Tribune experimented with short-form storytelling across YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and TikTok. Video audience manager Trevor Christensen started at The Tribune about a year before the newsroom joined Civic Studio and worked closely with Hansen to develop a strategy and begin producing successful videos. With the added support from the program, he went on to produce everything from community features to explanatory journalism, including a video about Utah toxic pollution releases that reached nearly 300,000 Instagram viewers. 

The newsroom exceeded its Instagram engagement goal three months ahead of schedule, and Christensen’s work earned national recognition at the 2026 National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism competition, including first place for Online Video Individual, second place for 24-Hour Online Video Individual, and an honorable mention in the Long-Form category.

The team’s growing confidence proved especially valuable when The Tribune had an opportunity to apply for the Lenfest Creator Collaborative Program and expand its work.

When Hansen learned The Tribune might add another video position, he scheduled a confidential call with Gelman and LNI Media co-founder Lauren Saks, another Civic Studio coach. 

Together, they worked backward from the newsroom’s needs, asking whether The Tribune needed an editor, manager, or another creator. Ultimately, they concluded an additional on-camera video journalist would have the greatest impact.

Gelman explained that making the case for a new position starts by identifying the audience need and demonstrating how an additional staff member will expand a newsroom’s capacity — not simply increase headcount.

The coaches helped Hansen build not only a hiring proposal but also a clear job description before leadership had even approved the position.

With the Lenfest grant and management sign-off, The Tribune hired Abigail Landwehr as a video audience manager in May.

“We had such a good plan,” Hansen said. “The right person applied, and it was very clear who that was, to be frank, because we had everything outlined.”

The payoff was immediate. Before Landwehr joined the team, The Tribune had not met its monthly YouTube publishing goal during the first five months of the year. It reached that goal in both June and July, while increasing its publishing cadence from videos on 14 days in January to an average of 24 days per month during Landwehr’s first three months.

“Hiring a second person doubled our capacity,” Hansen said. While other staff members contribute to video projects, Christensen had previously been The Tribune’s only dedicated creator. “Now we have two, and that’s a 100% increase in our potential for everything automatically, which is awesome.”

For Gelman, The Tribune’s experience illustrates a broader shift taking place across journalism.

“It’s not an either-or question,” he said. “It’s really about how we’re going to reach as many people as possible at the moment they want to be reached.”