Lots of us took up quirky hobbies while we were shut in at home during the pandemic.
Evan George’s: Delivering Boston local news in 60 seconds or less.
As a Massachusetts native living in Boston, George had long been plugged into local politics and community organizing with the Democratic Socialists of America. He studied history in college and the sociology of education in graduate school. He wanted to help keep people updated on the city, so he started recording a daily podcast. But when George saw how young people were using TikTok to achieve political outcomes (and troll Donald Trump — more on that below), he joined the platform and posted videos summarizing Boston’s daily headlines in under a minute.
Under his handle @bostopianews, George records himself walking through Boston while talking to the camera, summarizing what he considers to be the day’s most important stories and offering his own opinion where he feels it’s necessary. He takes care to cite journalists and news organizations directly. When giving his own opinion, he adds the label “my editorial.”
In his most recent video, published on February 18, George cites a Boston Globe story about Boston police officers’ lack of compliance with the city’s civilian-run oversight agency.
“I said at the time of its creation that this agency would be pointless and only was brought into existence to placate liberals from asking for actual structural demands,” George says in the video, as the words “my editorial” appear on screen. “Like limiting the role that police play in our society and reallocating their massive budget to services and programs that actually reduce crime.”
Bostopia videos are easy to watch. Viewers see George walking and talking, usually sporting a Boston sports team hat (he has at least 10, he said). There are no fancy graphics or screenshots. He just uses TikTok’s native text editor and posts. He’s a renter and lives with his fiancée in Boston, and doesn’t currently make any money from Bostopia videos.
Today George has over 32,000 followers on TikTok and 17,000 on Instagram. He doesn’t identify as a journalist, but sees himself as someone amplifying the work that local journalists are already doing. He attributes part of his success to his candidness. He’s up front about his leftist politics and his experience in local political organizing, and doesn’t back down from them.
“Because I’ve been enmeshed in this world for so long, I have a good temperature check of what is actually happening or what somebody is misreading,” George told me. “And then I go off of my own knowledge about the internal politics, especially within the Boston City Council, of what is actually happening behind the scenes.”
George posts his news summaries while working three jobs. He works as a project manager during the day and bartends at two bars at night. He usually catches up on the news in the mornings before work and during free blocks throughout the day, jots down some notes on a sheet of paper, and then records his videos as he walks from one job to the next.
George regularly engages with his audience. He discusses and debates with viewers in the comments and he has local politicians and staffers in his DMs. Once, he told me, a voiceover actor reached out and asked to run lines with him because she was preparing for a role to portray someone with a Boston accent. She said his videos have been shared with dialog coaches across the country. (He clarified to me that he actually has a Merrimack Valley accent.)
George and I discussed his beginnings as a news creator, his views on local news, developing relationships in Boston’s political arena, and more. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Hanaa’ Tameez: Why did you start creating news videos?
Evan George: I’ve been doing a version of reporting on the news [with a weekly news podcast] since probably about 2014, and I pivoted out of it to do more political work, organizing, and activism. I returned to it during the pandemic where I needed something to do and I had all this time locked in my room like everyone else. I decided this could be an outlet to keep people engaged. I started doing a daily podcast where I would give you the news in about four to five minutes in the morning.
At some point during Trump’s [campaign] in the 2020 election, [campaign staff] were using TikTok as part of outreach. People on TikTok organized to register [for Trump’s rallies] as if they were going to attend, so they ballooned [registrations] to like 100,000. But then when Trump got there, there were only like 8,000. The story was about how these kids on TikTok were using it as a tool for political activism, so what if I did my local news coverage [there] but within like the strict format of TikTok, which was at the time just 60 seconds.
I just said “Boston local news in 60 seconds” and I started doing a format where at first I was locked in my room, and then sometimes I went out on my porch. Now I am very busy and normally walking in between jobs when I’m recording. That got a lot of quick success. People seem to enjoy it.
Tameez: Why is this important to you?
George: I very much view it as an extension of the political work that I do. There’s an
About Me section and I’m very up front with my own biases and opinions. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m successful in this field. I think it’s important that people understand what is going on, what is affecting the material conditions, and with everyone — for one reason or another, focusing on the national level — there was just this void of local focus. I try to stay very rigid with just commenting on local stories, statewide stories, and if there is something happening at the national level, I’m tying it into how that now looks on the ground here in Boston or across Massachusetts.
Tameez: Why is this work important now?
George: I would argue it’s important to do this work always. I am almost exclusively reliant on the work of journalists from The Boston Globe, from the Boston Herald, from a number of other great outlets, but one gap here that I [fill] is to recontextualize some of their framing because I think all news reporting has inherent biases in it. If I only have 60 seconds to report on something, what I emphasize, what goes first, what goes last, what gets ignored, is going to reflect those biases. You can read just about every article that is published and that has that emotional framing of how they want the audience to feel about this.
While here in Boston, we are fortunate enough that we do have two major publications and half a dozen to a dozen other smaller ones, being able to recontextualize their stories in a way that more closely resonates with people and doesn’t necessarily serve the interests of the corporations or the hedge funds that own our current media apparatuses. [Editor’s Note: The Boston Herald is owned by Digital First Media, a company managed by hedge fund Alden Global Capital. The Boston Globe is owned by Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C. owner John Henry.]
Tameez: Walk me through your workflow from video ideation to posting.
George: So normally before I punch into work at 9:00 a.m., I like to go through
Massachusetts Politico — it does a great job just highlighting different stories from different outlets —
MASSter List also does a
weekly publication, so I normally first scroll through them to see what stories they are highlighting. Then I go back and I read through that day’s edition of both The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald to see what stories didn’t make the rundowns that I think should take precedence.
TikTok used to have a much more rigid format, around 60 seconds. They’ve since lifted that, so a lot of the videos are longer than 60 seconds. They’re closer to 1:05 or 1:10. But I try to keep it somewhere between one minute to 1:30 depending on how much editorializing I feel is necessary. It has to do with my own instincts of what is probably going to be buried — even if it is being written about and published, on maybe WGBH or on page three of the Metro section — that I think is the number one thing people need to know right now, highlighting those stories.
That reflects my own bias, priorities, and what I think materially impacts people. Then I use my editorializing to help contextualize why this is important or how you should feel about this and the reason this is happening. I don’t use a script. I normally have, like, a little piece of paper that just tells me the three or four stories, like the journalists, the publication, any numbers. I very much go off the cuff as I’m walking from point A to point B.
Tameez: I love the way that you cite them by putting the reporter’s name and what publication.
George: It took me a while to figure out that format. I always felt bad about it. I want to highlight people’s work [by using screenshots], and TikTok would take it down for copyright infringement. And so I struggled: How do I cite these sources? I’ve landed on what I’m currently doing, and people seem to like it. And I get to distinguish between what is coming from the journalist and what is my own editorializing.
Tameez: How do you fact-check?
George: I very much depend on the journalists who are publishing. Fortunately, for some of the top stories, there’ll be two outlets that are reporting on the same thing. After I’ve read both articles, I make sure they have the five Ws correct. There’s a lot of great reporters, even if I disagree with their biases, either themselves or the publications, they do great on-the-ground reporting. That’s much needed. And so I can rely on them for that element. Because I’ve been enmeshed in this world for so long, I have a good temperature check of what is actually happening or what somebody is misreading. And then I go off of my own knowledge about the internal politics, especially within the Boston City Council, of what is actually happening behind the scenes.
Tameez: What do fairness and objectivity mean to you? How does that play out in your work?
George: I think it has much more to do with being ideologically consistent than it does [with] not having an ideology. When I am criticizing [Boston mayor] Michelle Wu for any number of things, it is coming from the same perspective, which is from a left perspective. I want her to do better on these issues. I think she’s hedged a lot in some of her campaign promises, and that is always my lens.
I don’t take every little thing she does or doesn’t do and try to blow it up because I think she’s a bad person and that is why I’m attacking her. I am attacking her on substantive policy things that she does because she’s not living up to what we currently need. I am ideologically consistent, and I give her credit where credit is due, and I blame her more often than not when that is also due. But I am always consistent in that critique and attack. I’m not constantly switching sides just to hit someone for the sake of doing so.
Tameez: Who is your audience?
George: I [usually] look at the TikTok breakdown of my audience. I’ve become more and more popular on Instagram. I started posting on Instagram because my mom wanted to see the videos and she doesn’t have TikTok. But Instagram seems not to be muting the political content as much as TikTok has recently. For TikTok, which is what most people associate me with, it’s about a 2:1 gender split, with women being the higher percentage than men. The age breakdown is mostly in my own demographic, people in their 30s. I get stopped on the street and recognized. Sometimes somebody is telling me about how their brother’s a big fan who’s 16, but also sometimes it’s people in their 60s and 70s.
I would say my average listener would be a woman in her early 30s who is very pro-choice and more progressive. Probably a fan of Michelle Wu.
Tameez: What issues and topics most resonate with your viewers?
George: Mostly the current failures of the Massachusetts Democratic Party in terms of why is it that we live [like this]. Most people, especially since 2015, view politics as a national spectacle between these two entities, the Republicans and the Democrats. Why is it that Massachusetts has super majorities of Democrats in both chambers? They have the governorship. Every Boston city councilor has to register as a Democrat or pretend to be such. Why are things so unaffordable that families can’t afford to live here? That I myself have to work 3 or 4 jobs to pay rent and to have a standard of living that seemed a lot more accessible?
Whenever I can [explain the contradiction of the fact that] though we have a Democratic Party, it is the least active legislative chamber in the country. They don’t go to work. They are the most apathetic people. We have the least competitive elections in the country. You are basically guaranteed [this representation] for life and here are all the ways that they are failing us. We had to pull the Fair Share Amendment kicking and screaming. It was a 20-year effort to tax millionaires, something that should have been very easy to do if you have super majorities of Democrats, supposedly. And then almost immediately, they rolled that back by giving a massive tax cut of $1 billion the following year.
That’s probably the biggest issue, as in terms of a larger narrative, when I talk about giving context and I’m explaining how things are going. Massachusetts is not currently having fiscal problems, necessarily, but we have a tight budget. Don’t forget, we gave away $1 billion two years ago pretty unnecessarily. The majority of that went to corporations and day traders and people who were inheriting large inheritances.
Tameez: How do you engage with your audience?
George: I try to hop in the comments. I’ve been bad about that the last few months. Some of that just has to do with how many comments I get. If I make an error, I will [correct] it in the comments and then pin that to the top. I have once or twice clarified something in the next day’s video if I think it’s important enough. Otherwise, if the captions pick up on the wrong number or wrong syllable, I just trust the audience to figure that out themselves. [In the comments] I’m very combative, mostly for fun, to provoke people. Unless you make a good point. And then I will say “fair point,” which is the highest praise I can give someone.
George: It hasn’t changed how I operate in the slightest. The format that I do is very different from other TikToks. I don’t do the quick edits. I don’t really put quick images up. I try to speak in the same tone and inflection throughout every single story. I think that’s part of the reason why people trust me. I don’t talk like I’m trying to keep your attention. I’m just telling you something, and if you find it worth listening to, do so.
Every time there’s one of these big sales or the threats of TikTok going down, I see fluctuations in my numbers. My views are probably down like 50% over the past year. If an average video would get 5,000 to 6,000 views, now an average video is closer to 2,000 to 3,000. Every now and then, for one reason or another, one will blow up and we’ll get like 50,000 or 100,000. That happens maybe twice a month.
Tameez: Do you remember the first time a video went viral and what that felt like?
George: I remember being very happy when I got, like, 200 views. I’m older. I don’t really have a frame of reference for this. I know how few people engage with local media. More people will get exposure to a journalist’s work through my videos and they will actually click the link and read it. Some of the stories that I pull get more exposure from me summarizing what they’re saying in two sentences than they will people reading it. I remember getting 2,000 followers, and I was like, “I’ll do this forever If I have 2,000 people that find this interesting enough to engage with.”
Tameez: How has your relationship to social media and information consumption changed since you started making videos?
George: In terms of news consumption, not much. There’s a little bit more of a labor element where I have to write down certain elements. But it never really feels like a job, because I’ve always stayed engaged. Most of that is because of the political work that I was doing, but also because I just wanted to know what was happening. And it’s why I don’t use a script. It’s just very easy for me to quickly talk about the two most important things from that story. And if I need to recontextualize it for you, here’s my one sentence editorial of what you need to take away from this.
Tameez: Do you pay for any news subscriptions?
George: I pay for The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, The New York Times, in terms of national outlets. And then I also was subscribing to the
Dorchester Reporter. I lived in Dorchester for most of my time here in Boston, but recently moved [in] with my fiancée. I’m having a hard time subscribing to [the Dorchester Reporter]. I don’t know if they do door-to-door anymore. I know they used to. There’s also about half a dozen or more nationally focused podcasts that I subscribe to.
Tameez: Who are your favorite news creators?
George: At the local level, I haven’t really been able to find somebody who does what I do in terms of video.
Yawu Miller is a great journalist from Boston who created an outlet called
The Flip Side. I think the Dorchester Reporter does the best electoral coverage in the city. So I’ve always been a fan of theirs as well.
Tameez: How do you sustain yourself financially while doing this work?
George: I am — it’s hard to say “fortunate,” because of how much I work — but I get my money elsewhere. I think that helps immensely. I don’t know if I could do what I do if I had any restrictions or limitations editorially because of financial reasons. In the past, people would Venmo me as a thank you. For the two years that I wanted to commit to doing the podcast weekly — mostly focused around the mayoral election — I started a Patreon and said, “If you want to support me in this way, you can. Everything I do is free regardless.” That $200 to $300 per month gave me enough of an incentive that I would feel bad if I wasn’t going to publish an episode, because enough people would give me a couple bucks.
Before the changeover of TikTok, I think the most I ever made was $70 a month. That has completely gone away. I don’t think I’ve received any money from TikTok over the past six months or so. I deactivated my Patreon once I was no longer going to do weekly episodes. I don’t think I’m getting anything from anyone right now.
Since I make my money elsewhere, that gives me the freedom to speak what I believe, but it also limits the amount of time and attention I can give to it, which is why I try to highlight the journalists that do this work. Without them, it would be much harder for me to understand what’s happening.
I also don’t rely on access at all. Politicians and staffers reach out to me. I don’t ask them for information or background because I know I’m going to criticize one of their votes, but I might pull my punches more if I need them to give me information.
Tameez: There are a lot of things that we as journalists do that we see as normal, like talking to politicians and elected officials, and the public doesn’t necessarily have that experience with them. You’re sort of in this cross position. What is that balance like of being a news creator and trying to have these relationships?
George: A lot of the relationships were first built because we just ran in the same political circles. It’s a lot more about coordinating together to achieve a political outcome. As I became more and more popular, how do we use that in a way that helps serve that political outcome? Now, because of how critical I am, especially of the people that are most closely associated with my politics, it is very common that I will criticize a politician and then they won’t contact me for a year or until they’ve gotten over that.
Also, I’m a bartender. There’s nothing that these people are going to say that is nearly as creative as half the drunks I have to kick out. I don’t go to [politicians’] parties, I don’t hang out. I’m not trying to climb a political ladder. They don’t have anything to offer or give me, unless we are connected in trying to achieve the same [political] objective for people.
Tameez: Do you ever want to do this full time?
George: I would love to have a daily news show from like one to four hours. Radio. YouTube. Could be whatever. But I’m at the stage in my life where I think I would need to hop on something that already exists, versus me creating another thing from scratch. I’m 38. I’m insanely busy. If anyone out there can figure that one out, I’ll do a daily political show. The only restrictions would be around editorial [policies]. What would I be allowed to say?
A lot of my politics don’t have the money or the infrastructure behind it. There are outlets that exist that do a fantastic job — like Dropsite News, Jacobin Magazine, The Intercept — but niche local news like that just doesn’t exist anywhere. There isn’t a whole lot of money in lefty radio. It heavily relies on sponsorship, which in some format I would be fine with. But if you start running ICE recruitment [ads], I can’t do that type of stuff.
Tameez: How has your view about legacy/mainstream journalism changed since you started this work?
George: Between my own political developments and my own reading, it’s really just how much it matters where these publications’ funding comes from, more than their ideas. The more I start to look at, like, who owns the Boston Herald? Well, they
declared bankruptcy almost 10 years ago. They were bought up by Digital First Media. It’s owned by a corporate hedge fund. They might actually be down to like 10% of their preexisting staff.
Understanding the business behind the news and how that influences what we’re seeing, and that is why I think a lot of news outlets and publications have gravitated towards more commentary of the horse race than on-the-ground reporting. I’m a lot more lenient toward a lot of the local journalists because…I know the context that [they’re] operating under. I think understanding the biases of the publications helps a lot because I know who’s calling these reporters and helping to influence the emotional resonances of the pieces.
Tameez: What lessons do you think legacy journalism can learn from news creators and vice versa?
George: I think the biggest thing is the connection that we have with our audience. Everyone holds up Walter Cronkite or a certain person as their perception of the news. You trusted that person or that voice. For a lot of different reasons, that trust no longer exists. A lot of that has to do with the news media themselves, but it also has to do with the structures in which they operate. They need corporate funding and all these things, and it filters out different types of people.
A lot of people view [news creators] more as entertainment than as a news source or for learning about the world. The biggest thing they could take from small, independent creators like myself is that we don’t generally hide our biases, and we’re consistent in those viewpoints. That helps build us a much more organic trust, whereas in more corporate media they’re like, “no, no, we have to try to maintain objectivity.”
No one believes you’re objective anymore. To whatever extent they did, that’s all gone. You don’t need to pretend to [to be neutral] or be worried about [what people think]. Because now it just sounds like you’re hiding things and nobody trusts or believes that anymore.
Tameez: What challenges lie ahead in 2026 for news creators?
George: I think it’s only going to get worse in terms of the corporate consolidation. If we don’t have people on the ground, even with all the limitations they face, to actually do the reporting, to go to city council meetings, to do the interviews with people on the street, we’re not going to get a temperature check or understanding of what’s happening. People will just do what’s easier, which is what a lot of the news is heading toward: basic commentary on national issues of debate. That’s not journalism, really, in any definition. And of course, now you’re adding predictive betting markets to CNN coverage. For all of the faults that the news media had in the 80s, the 90s, and the 2000s, it’s just getting so much worse in terms of actual reporting.
