Forget clicks. "You can engage people's curiosity." - Poynter

""What I'm trying to show you is I'm a real guy who takes the bus to the city to get the information that you need," he said. "So yeah, there is an element of every man to what I'm doing. But that's only because I think that's always been my approach as a writer and as a journalist, trying to kind of demystify these institutions.""

"Sullivan's TikTok on the American Dream Mall won the Roy Peter Clark Prize for Excellence in Short Writing in the 2025 Poynter Journalism Prizes . This is Poynter's first prize to recognize reporting that lives on social media. "The thing that I hate about social media is this idea that you have to just feed the algorithm and give people crap, because that's what does best," he said. "It's like, you know, you can engage people's curiosity.""

S.P. Sullivan shifted much of his reporting to social media, bringing local coverage to TikTok with a conversational, everyman tone. He frames his presence as a commuter who takes the bus to gather information, aiming to demystify institutions for ordinary people. A TikTok about the American Dream Mall won the 2025 Roy Peter Clark Prize for Excellence in Short Writing, marking Poynter's first prize for social-media reporting. Sullivan criticizes algorithm-driven low-quality content and emphasizes that social platforms can engage curiosity. He compares contemporary debates about social media to earlier debates about television while maintaining a creative journalistic approach.

Read at Poynter