Tackling misconceptions, amplifying young voices, balancing hard news with joyful content and being sensitive to Gen Z interests are some of the key actions that have allowed Teen Vogue to engage with the youngest audiences.
That, according to Versha Sharma, editor in chief at the online magazine, who delivered the keynote speech “The Gen Z scoop: How Teen Vogue leverages trust and authenticity to attract young audiences” on March 28, as part of the 26th International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ), at the University of Texas at Austin.
Sharma said Teen Vogue, whose audience ranges from pre-teens to people in their late-twenties, is aware that Gen Z individuals have been dealing with complicated and disruptive situations their entire lives, including the effects of climate crisis, the COVID-19 lockdown and the rise of authoritarianism.
Having that in mind while making editorial decisions is what has helped the outlet create a strong connection with the generation of people born roughly between 1997 and 2012.
“Taking into account the traits of this generation and what they have been through – truly life-changing events the last couple of years – and being sensitive to that is how we try to stay connected,” Sharma said in conversation with McKenzie Henningsen, editor in chief of The Daily Texan.
Although Teen Vogue has covered the interests of young audiences since its creation in 2003, it was during the first administration of President Donald Trump that the magazine stepped up as “an unapologetic, truth-telling voice and platform for young people” that was not afraid to call out Trump’s authoritarian and discriminatory policies, Sharma said.
The coverage of issues that affect young people, such as attacks on trans students, threats to queer youth, and campus protests, is one of the main reasons why Gen Z readers trust Teen Vogue, Sharma said.
One example of the impact of that trust is the March 2025 special issue featuring Vivian Wilson, the 20-year-old estranged daughter of Elon Musk. News outlets worldwide had been pursuing an interview with her ever since she gained global attention in 2022, when, at 18, she legally changed her name and gender.
Wilson accepted only a few of those interview requests. However, according to Sharma, Teen Vogue was the publication that conducted an original photo shoot with Wilson.
“She trusted us because of our reputation and our expertise,” Sharma said. “It’s a little bit about our reputation for authentically representing abuse of young people, and also not being afraid to poke authorities, or take shots at people in power who are taking shots at young people.”
The Wilson special issue also exemplifies Teen Vogue as a platform where young people can share their own stories. The interview and feature story were conducted by Ella Yurman, a transgender writer, actress, and comedian based in Brooklyn.
“It was really important for us in the telling of the story that trans people get to tell their own stories, because unfortunately, that very rarely happens, especially in mainstream media,” Sharma said.
One of the keys to staying in tune with Gen Z’s interests and concerns is being surrounded by them and having them lead the newsroom, Sharma said. She proudly admits to being the oldest member of her team, which is made up entirely of Gen Z-ers and Millennials. This, she added, is one of the reasons Teen Vogue has continued to grow consistently.
“How do you keep up with what young people are interested in? The answer is very easy: you listen to them, you hire them, you give them bylines, you let them write for you, and you interview them as well,” she said. “To have people telling stories for their peers and actually empowering young people with leadership positions, and positions of power, to enable them to tell these stories and shape what the editorial agenda is in newsrooms has just made a huge difference.”
Challenging misconceptions about Gen Z has also played a key role in Teen Vogue’s ability to connect with this generation, Sharma said. This approach not only guides decisions on which stories to cover but also helps the team better understand young people’s news consumption habits.
For example, while it’s widely believed that increased technology use and fragmented media distribution have shortened young people’s attention spans, Sharma pointed to research showing Gen Z actively engages with long-form content on YouTube, TikTok, and podcasts platforms.
Similarly, although young generations are considered to be “chronically online”, there is other research that suggests Gen Z individuals have a real appetite for connection and in-person community, and are showing value to print content again, Sharma said.
In response, Teen Vogue hosts the Teen Vogue Summit, a full-day, in-person event where readers can connect with editors, reporters, cultural icons, and change-makers.
Sharma also hinted that the magazine is working on reintroducing some form of print content, adding to its strong digital presence across major social media platforms.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about Gen Z because people are quick to make generalizations, instead of digging deeper,” Sharma said. “I think this is where listening to them, hiring them, etcetera, comes into play, because you really learn what their actual habits are.”
Sharma noted that the Teen Vogue team recognizes news fatigue across audiences of all ages and understands that young readers aren’t always exclusively drawn to hard news. As a result, the magazine strives to balance coverage between important issues that matter most to its audience and stories that are entertaining and joyful.
The key is staying engaged with the conversations young people are having – online and offline, she said.
“These are such bleak challenging times, especially for journalists, for marginalized communities, for young people, women of color, queer people, and the list goes on and on, that I think it’s incredibly important to make sure that we do have a balance actually of what we are covering,” Sharma said. “That is based on conversations that take place with our teams every single day in our editorial stand ups in the morning. We are always asking people to share the conversations that they are having, what they are seeing, and that’s our goal.”
That balance is particularly evident in the magazine’s approach to fashion coverage —the core theme of Teen Vogue at its inception and of its parent publication, Vogue. Sharma explained that today, the magazine explores fashion while reflecting topics that resonate with young audiences.
As an example, she highlighted “Package: The Last Stop”, a series of articles that examines the journey of discarded clothing and its environmental impact.
“Teen Vogue is excellent at showing how young people understand intersectionality in a way that previous generations just didn’t,” she said. “They can be interested in the latest celebrity news or fashion trends, or just fashion and personal style in general, but also be really conscious of how fast fashion, for example, is impacting the global climate crisis.”
Fact checking and transparency are the main factors to ensure Teen Vogue’s credibility while maintaining its distinctive voice, Sharma said. Every content that the magazine publishes goes through a rigorous fact checking and copy editing.
“In this era of low trust and attacks on journalists and journalism, we have to be tight in our storytelling,” she said. “We have to be air-tight in our reporting and in our storytelling.”
In terms of transparency, Sharma said Teen Vogue is planning to put more of its editors in front of the camera to talk about the stories and their reporting practices, so readers understand how the stories actually come together.
“A challenge that we have seen with the decline of local news is that people know fewer journalists in their lives, and so they have less information on how journalism is actually produced, done and gathered”, Sharma said. “It’s really important to us to try to continue pushing that forward and make sure our audience understands how this actually comes together.”
Transparency is today more necessary than ever to attract young audiences, who seem to trust influencers and online personalities more than legacy and mainstream media, Sharma said. But not only the transparency, but also the authenticity and the lack of filter are influencers traits that are driving young people away from traditional media.
Sharma believes this distancing will continue to widen as the Trump administration becomes increasingly authoritarian. She noted young people are becoming more critical of mainstream media for failing to explicitly call out authoritarian actions.
“When young people see equivocation or false equivalences in a headline, or in the front page of a newspaper, of course they lose trust,” Sharma said. “They rather listen to a person on TikTok who they believe is giving it to them straight, rather than these newspapers. That’s absolutely a focus of ours and something we want to continue going forward.”