The Wall Street Journal just published what might be the most validating piece of reporting we’ve read all year for us in the content marketing biz. I noticed this article all over LinkedIn this past weekend, with marketing pros sharing it widely and singing the praises of its main takeaways.
In “Companies Are Desperately Seeking ‘Storytellers,’” reporter Katie Deighton breaks down a trend that’s been hiding in plain sight: corporate America is scrambling to hire people who can think like media professionals.
The numbers are staggering. According to LinkedIn data cited in the article, job postings mentioning “storyteller” doubled in the past year alone, with over 50,000 marketing positions and more than 20,000 communications roles now using the term. Executive mentions of “storytelling” on earnings calls jumped from 147 in 2015 to 469 in 2025.
If you’ve read The Media Mindset, none of this should surprise you. In fact, it should feel like vindication.
The Media Landscape Collapsed. Companies Are Filling the Void.
Here’s what the WSJ piece makes crystal clear: the traditional publicity model is dead.
The numbers tell the story:
- Journalism jobs dropped from ~66,000 in 2000 to ~49,000 today
- Print newspaper circulation is down 70% since 2005
- The top 100 newspaper websites have seen traffic decline by over 40% in just four years
Meanwhile, brands have gained direct distribution channels that didn’t exist 25 years ago: social media accounts, YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, podcasts. Some are even financing entertainment properties directly.
The result is that companies can no longer rely on journalists to tell their stories. They have to become the journalists.
Steve Hirsch, CEO of communications firm Hirsch Leatherwood, told the WSJ: “It’s more common now that I get on the phone with CEOs and they’re proactively coming to me saying, ‘It sounds like I need a content strategy,’ rather than a typical press relations strategy.”
That shift—from PR strategy to content strategy—is exactly what we’ve been helping companies navigate at Encore360 for years.
What Companies Are Actually Hiring For (And Why Most Will Get It Wrong)
The WSJ article profiles some fascinating examples:
Google is hiring a “customer storytelling manager” for its Google Cloud storytelling team. One recent article they published: “Lowe’s innovation: How Vertex AI helps create interactive shopping experiences.”
Microsoft’s security division wants a “senior director of narrative and storytelling”—described as part cybersecurity technologist, part communicator, part marketer.
Vanta is offering up to $274,000 for a head of storytelling.
USAA has hired four staff storytellers in less than a year, tasked with writing blogs, reports, scripts, and guides that “bring to life scenarios, situations and opportunities to advocate for our members.”
Notice what’s happening here? These aren’t copywriters. They’re not traditional PR flacks. They’re editorial thinkers who understand how to build narrative infrastructure.
But here’s the problem: Most companies hiring “storytellers” don’t actually know what they need.
The Title Without the Mindset
Jennifer Kuperman, Chime’s chief corporate affairs officer, told the WSJ that their storyteller opening attracted over 500 applicants—mostly former journalists from traditional media outlets.
That makes sense. Journalists understand beats. They know how to find the story inside the press release. They can write with clarity and authority. They’ve spent years building trust with readers.
But hiring one person with a journalism background doesn’t magically transform your marketing department into a media operation.
You can’t bolt storytelling onto a campaign-driven culture and expect it to work.
This is the trap we see companies fall into constantly: They change the job title without changing the system. They hire a “storyteller” but still think in quarterly campaigns. They want editorial credibility but refuse to publish anything that doesn’t directly promote a product.
As we wrote in The Media Mindset: “Content isn’t a department. It’s the product.”
If you’re hiring storytellers but still treating content as a support function—something that lives between brand decks and campaign calendars—you’re missing the point entirely.
What Real Media Thinking Looks Like
The WSJ article quotes designer Stefan Sagmeister’s 2014 critique: “People who actually tell stories, meaning people who write novels and make feature films, don’t see themselves as storytellers. It’s all the people who are not storytellers who suddenly now want to be storytellers.”
He’s not wrong. But he’s also missing what’s actually happening.
The best B2B brands aren’t trying to become Hollywood. They’re trying to become the publication of record for their niche. They’re trying to build what traditional trade magazines used to provide: authoritative, consistent, useful content that helps buyers make better decisions.
That means:
- Publishing with rhythm, not just reacting to product launches
- Building recurring formats your audience recognizes and trusts
- Turning internal experts into editorial voices, not just subject matter sources
- Measuring success by influence and trust, not just clicks and conversions
When companies get this right, they don’t just hire a storyteller—they build a storytelling engine.
The Real Question: Can You Support What You’re Hiring?
If your company is jumping on the storyteller hiring trend, ask yourself these questions:
1. Do you have an editorial calendar or a campaign calendar?
A campaign calendar resets every quarter. An editorial calendar builds momentum over time through recurring series and consistent beats.
2. Are you willing to publish content that educates before it sells?
Real media brands earn trust by being useful, even when there’s nothing to promote. Can your legal team handle that? Can your executive team?
3. Do you have systems to capture and repurpose internal knowledge?
One storyteller can’t magically extract expertise from your entire organization. You need workflows to surface insights from sales calls, customer success interactions, and subject matter expert brains.
4. Are you measuring the right things?
If your storyteller is being judged solely on lead gen metrics, you’re setting them up to fail. Authority compounds slowly. Trust builds over time. Can your organization think in quarters and years simultaneously?
5. Can you protect the voice?
Every executive suddenly becomes an editor when content starts getting traction. Can you maintain editorial consistency when the COO wants to “review” your newsletter copy?
The Opportunity (And the Warning)
The storyteller hiring boom is great news for the marketing industry. It signals that companies are finally recognizing what media professionals have always known: narrative is infrastructure, not decoration.
But hiring isn’t strategy. A job title isn’t a business model. And one talented person can’t overcome a culture that still thinks like a vendor instead of a voice.
As the WSJ article notes, CEO of the National Wild Turkey Federation Pete Muller said: “What people are looking for and what they find job satisfaction in has changed. So framing it in a way that conveys they are an integral part of telling the NWTF story is an important part to finding the best talent possible.”
He’s right about the framing. But here’s what will determine whether that storyteller succeeds or burns out in 18 months: Does the organization actually want to operate like a media brand, or do they just want better marketing collateral with a fancier title?
The Media Mindset Isn’t Optional Anymore
We’ve been saying this for years, but now the Wall Street Journal is saying it too: Your company is a media company, whether you know it or not.
The publicity model is dead. The content marketing gold rush is here. Every company with a LinkedIn account and a blog is now competing in the attention economy.
The question isn’t whether to hire storytellers. The question is whether you’re ready to build the systems, culture, and workflows that let them actually tell stories worth remembering.
Because here’s the truth: You don’t need a storyteller. You need a storytelling engine.
You need to think in series, not one-offs. You need to build distribution muscle. You need to turn your subject matter experts into content contributors. You need to measure authority, not just activity.
You need, in other words, a media mindset.
The hiring boom proves the market has caught on. Now comes the hard part: actually doing the work.
Want to build a storytelling engine that actually works? The Media Mindset walks you through the exact systems, workflows, and mental models that turn small marketing teams into media operations. Available now.