YouTube hit Channel 5 News is “reporting for people who don't watch the news”

July 21, 2022, 9 a.m.“People who don’t watch the news watch me. People who watch the news don’t watch me.” A recent college graduate with an oversized thrift store suit and curls like Napoleon Dynamite, Andrew Callaghan doesn’t necessarily look like a credible source of information. But Channel 5 News, Callaghan’s web series and brand, has built a following including 1.93 million YouTube subscribers, and the 25-year-old pulls in roughly $100,000 per month through Patreon. “I think I provide a gateway to engagement with reporting for people who don’t watch the news,” Callaghan, 25, told me. “People who don’t watch the news watch me. People who watch the news don’t watch me.” Since hitting the road in 2019, Callaghan’s work has evolved beyond a parodic presentation of small-town news. He recently reported from Ukraine, interviewing the mayor of Lviv and refugees in the country and across the border in Poland. Much of the money that Channel 5 brings in is spent on operating costs for the traveling production, and the rest is split evenly between Callaghan and two collaborators. During his college years in New Orleans, Callaghan started hitchhiking the American South between classes. When local filmmaker Michael Moises started…
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