Digital Journalist and Award-Winning Podcaster V Spehar Discusses Navigating Nontraditional Media, TikTok Ban at Compelling Perspectives

As a digital journalist, podcaster and host of a TikTok news channel with a following of more than three million, V Spehar spoke to the crowd gathered at Baker Hall in Zoellner Arts Center, sharing insight into nontraditional media and the challenges and opportunities it presents to journalists.

Spehar was the third and final speaker in the 2024-25 Compelling Perspectives event series hosted by Lehigh University on Feb. 6. The program aims to create a forum for fostering respectful discourse among differing perspectives on issues of critical and societal importance. The conversation with Spehar, focusing on the role of nontraditional media in contemporary society, was led by President Joseph J. Helble ’82.

Spehar is the host and creator of @underthedesknews on TikTok, where they specialize in short-form videos, offering brief, informative recaps of notable headlines. They launched the channel in April 2020 with the goal of making news media less intimidating and easier to understand. Spehar began delivering one-minute news segments while under a desk. Since then, Spehar has gone on to launch “V Interesting,” a long-form podcast that has held a steady place in the top 25 news podcasts, and a Substack that has more than 73,000 subscribers.

Helble kicked off the conversation by asking Spehar about their unique path to becoming a renowned digital journalist, having studied theater in college before earning their MBA and going on to work in restaurants in New York City.

Spehar said they climbed the ranks in the restaurant industry and began catering events for clients in the political sphere, like the Clinton family and former U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, eventually leading them to become a social caterer in Washington, D.C. Spehar said the catering experience immersed them in the homes and personal lives of politicians, helping them understand politics on a deeper level, which has since aided in their reporting.

Spehar began making TikToks during the Covid-19 pandemic when they were furloughed from their job as director of impact for the James Beard Foundation, where they were essentially teaching chefs how to lobby Congress on issues like better small business policies and granting for women-owned ventures, they said. Like other chefs, Spehar said they turned to TikTok to create and share cooking videos. They also shared information about how to navigate and apply for government programs that were available to businesses during the pandemic, such as the Paycheck Protection Program loans and Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

Their first foray into creating their signature under-desk videos appeared on Jan. 6, 2021 when Spehar posted a TikTok explaining the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution while sitting under a desk.

“I just thought nothing of it, and I went back to it, and it had millions of views,” recalled Spehar. “My friend Randy was like, ‘You better get back under that desk and tell people what’s going on now…and it’s been four years.”

Spehar said they enjoyed making TikTok videos early on and learning how to use the app, but they never thought it would lead to a successful career as a digital journalist.

“It really just started off with something super fun—I never had an idea of making a career out of it,” Spehar said, later adding that it took them a while to see it as something for which they needed to believe and invest in themself.

Though Spehar has amassed a large following for their news reporting, they said they sometimes struggle with calling themself a journalist, and they continue to explore what being a journalist means in an evolving media landscape.

“I think at this point it would be disingenuous for me to say that I’m not a journalist, because saying you’re not a journalist kind of forgives you of any mistakes or intentional misinformation or disinformation you put out,” Spehar said. “You have to hold yourself to certain ethics standards.”

Spehar has been vocal about their disapproval of the term “newsfluencer” or “news influencer,” which is defined by the Pew Research Center as individuals who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube.

They said that traditional media has tried to “stiff arm” platforms that aren’t newspaper or cable television shows, which has led to Spehar being called a newsfluencer instead of a journalist.

“It’s just because the place that I deliver the news from, you don’t value, which is just sort of not fair to the audience or anybody else,” Spehar said. “The newsfluencer thing bugs me because I think it’s just a form of othering that doesn’t need to be there.”

When it comes to creating content for TikTok, Spehar shared insights into where they get their news and their experience in navigating misinformation and disinformation.

Spehar said they read Pew Research, ProPublica, Substacks like Popular Information and international newspapers for their news.

“I also understand that people distrust American media, and I don’t want to necessarily come off as exactly like CNN or exactly like the tape of someone else, so I sort of use international media to crosscheck myself with BBC or Deutsche Welle,” Spehar said.

Helble referenced TikToks in which Spehar has shared the differences between misinformation and disinformation and asked them why it matters, particularly in digital media. Spehar explained that misinformation is when a reporter makes a mistake that can be fixed. Disinformation, they said, is the intentional manipulation of somebody for some sort of other gain, and can manifest in the intentional placing of conspiracy theories or lies.

“I think that’s where mis- and disinformation are sort of a unique problem to the internet,” Spehar said. “Anybody can just get on and make a video about something, and now we’ve democratized who gets to make a video, to the point that we also give deference and objectivity to everyone as the same level of an expert.”

Spehar said the means for building a culture around deciphering and better identifying disinformation from fact needs to be further explored.

While the future of TikTok remains uncertain after the app faced a several-hour ban in the U.S. on Jan. 18, Spehar said another ban seems imminent and, if that is the case, they hope that people continue to seek out their content on other platforms such as YouTube and Substack. Spehar also said they do not envision a new platform emerging and reaching the same level of success that TikTok has garnered, since it was uniquely able to capitalize on developing a culture during the pandemic.

Prior to the Compelling Perspectives program, Spehar met with a group of students who represented various campus groups and majors, including those from the journalism department, College Democrats and Douglass Dialogues, which aims to create a space for students of all philosophical and political backgrounds to discuss pressing current issues.

The session was moderated by Provost Nathan Urban. The students asked questions about a range of topics, which included choosing platforms as a digital journalist, dealing with hurtful rhetoric online, avoiding burnout as a journalist and developing content ideas, such as Spehar’s popular “Good News Only” TikToks, in which they often wear a signature banana-print shirt and deliver only uplifting stories in a video posted every Thursday.

Spehar told the story of how they were required to wear a button-up shirt for a surgical procedure, so their wife bought them a comfy banana-print button-up. After coming back from surgery still wearing the shirt, Spehar said, “Let’s do some good news, for me, to cheer myself up.”

They once again took a chance and made a spontaneous video that went viral, and they never looked back.

Compelling Perspectives debuted in 2023. In September, veteran journalist Katie Couric kicked off this academic year’s series with a discussion on the role of traditional media in contemporary society. In December, longtime news editor Marty Baron ’76 ’76G ’14H explored the impact of traditional media during the recent U.S. presidential election. Information, including the topic and speakers, for the 2025-2026 academic year is forthcoming.