Is TikTok News Less “News-Like”? Investigating News Organizations’ Stories on TikTok and Their Alignment/ Divergence with Traditional News Values, Norms, Routines, and Roles

TikTok is increasingly used by young people to obtain the news, and news organizations have utilized it to reinvent themselves to reach millions of followers. There are concerns, however, that news on TikTok is more sensationalist and frivolous, and hinders journalism from playing its public service role. This study investigates if established legacy news organizations adapting to TikTok logics have indeed unanchored their news from traditional news values, norms, routines and roles and whether or not that is concerning, through a content analysis of 200 TikTok videos produced by 10 leading news organizations on that platform. Results show these news outlets continuing to adhere to their news agendas to present stories on both hard and soft news topics relevant to their audiences. There is also, notably, a tendency towards increasing the shareability of stories, where narratives feature a "human interest" element to focus on human impacts and appeal to emotions. That said, stories have mostly seen journalists remain objective, and transparent in revealing their sources and processes. Of concern however is news on TikTok tending to present singular sides to stories. More should also be done to feature voices of ordinary people; "government" continues to be their most cited source.