The Daily Aus (TDA) is an Australian social media-based news outlet founded in 2017 by Sam Koslowski and Zara Seidler. It is focused on delivering news and current affairs to young Australians aged 18–35, using a social-first, plain English editorial approach across Instagram, TikTok, daily email newsletters, and podcasts. It is widely regarded as Australia's leading social-first youth news organisation, reaching approximately 2.5 million Australians per month across its platforms.
The Daily Aus operates as an independent media company, unaffiliated with any larger media group. Their editorial focus is on issues relevant to young Australians, as 85% of its audience is under 35 years old. The organisation also operates Futureproof, a youth strategy advisory arm providing research and consulting services to corporate and government clients. As of March 2026, the company has 25 employees.
Publishing and audience The Daily Aus primarily posts news content to its Instagram and TikTok accounts and its website. Every weekday morning, the publication also sends out an email newsletter and releases a new podcast episode. Their news content is "bite-sized" and "easily digestible", written in plain English, with its stories catered specifically towards a young Generation Z audience. The outlet reports that 85% of its audience is under the age of 35, and 70% cite The Daily Aus as their primary news source.
History and growth
Founding (2017–2020)
The Daily Aus was founded by Sam Koslowski and Zara Seidler in 2017. Seidler graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney and worked as a news producer at Sky News and as a government officer. Koslowski worked as a corporate lawyer at a law firm, and was previously a social media journalist at Fox Sports Australia. In February 2021, they both quit their jobs to work at the company full-time. In 2020, the two entrepreneurs appeared in Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Media, Marketing & Advertising.
TDA's founding premise was that Instagram, TikTok, and podcast platforms were not marketing channels but primary news homes for the 18–35 demographic. The business was social-first from inception, building its initial audience on Instagram with short-form explainer posts written without assumed knowledge, partisan framing, or opinion. The founders deliberately rejected the creator-as-influencer model, positioning TDA as a brand-led newsroom rather than a personality-driven content channel.
From 2017 to 2020, the two founders posted daily to the outlet's Instagram account for three years while maintaining separate full-time careers. After three years of consistent publishing, the Instagram account had accumulated approximately 3,000 followers.
Growth and expansion (2020–2022) In 2020, The Daily Aus rapidly grew its Instagram following through its coverage of four key events: COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions in Australia, the Black Summer bushfires, the George Floyd protests and the US presidential election. The founders attributed their growth in readership to young audiences "going to Instagram for the basic information before they go out to more sophisticated news sources for further reading."
In February 2021, Koslowski and Seidler both resigned from their respective careers to work at TDA full-time. Following this transition, the outlet's audience grew rapidly; its Instagram following grew from approximately 100,000 to 270,000 between July 2021 and December 2021.
In March 2022, TDA appointed its first official editor, Billi FitzSimons, the daughter of Lisa Wilkinson and Peter FitzSimons.
In April 2022, the news outlet partnered with the iHeart Podcast Network to handle the production of their two podcasts, The Daily Aus and No Silly Questions.
In June 2022, TDA closed a $1.2 million seed funding round led by former Nine Entertainment Co. chief executive David Gyngell, with participation from Canva executives Zach Kitschke and Rob Kawalsky, and events company Untitled Group. The founders announced the capital would be used to expand the newsroom and deepen audience data capabilities for commercial partners.
In September 2022, the two founders appeared in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list for Media, Marketing & Advertising.
Newsletters and vertical expansion (2023–present) From 2023, TDA expanded from its flagship daily newsletter into a suite of topic-specific newsletter verticals. These include a sport newsletter, which surpassed 50,000 daily subscribers within one year of launch; a good news newsletter launched in partnership with travel company Intrepid Travel; a weekly culture newsletter (TDA Culture); and a finance newsletter, launched in May 2025, focused on economic news written for a non-specialist audience.
In June 2023, amidst the online presale for the Australian leg of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, TDA advertised a giveaway of four tickets to a random follower of their page. In a few hours, their account gained 20,000 followers. However, Frontier Touring, who was running the presale, later sent a cease and desist to the publication as tickets were not to be used as competition prizes. TDA was forced to remove their original post and issued an apology to readers that afternoon.
In September 2023, Koslowski and Seidler co-authored No Silly Questions: The Daily Aus explains how the world works (and why you should care), published by Penguin Life (an imprint of Penguin Books Australia). The book provides accessible explanations of economic, political, and social concepts for a general audience, consistent with the outlet's editorial approach.
In 2024, Koslowski and Seidler were listed in Forbes Australias inaugural 30 Under 30 list.
In 2025, TDA expanded its editorial offering across five content verticals — News, Sport, Finance, Good News, and Culture — each with dedicated newsletters, social presence, and commercial inventory. By mid-2025, TDA's combined newsletter portfolio reached more than 310,000 unique subscribers, with an average daily open rate exceeding 50 per cent — approximately double the industry average.
TDA confirmed its first profitable year in 2025, making it one of a small number of independent digital news publishers in Australia to achieve sustained commercial viability without reliance on philanthropic or public funding. Koslowski described the organisation as having "totally inverted the revenue mix" from social media to newsletters over a two-year period.
In November 2025, TDA announced two high-profile recruits to its leadership team — Mia Stern as Head of Operations from Nine Entertainment, and Tom Edmonds as Head of Partnerships from Nova Entertainment.
Content and products
Newsletters The Daily Aus publishes a flagship morning newsletter, distributed Monday to Friday, summarising key Australian and international news stories in plain English. As of 2025, the flagship morning newsletter has more than 200,000 subscribers. The portfolio also includes vertical newsletters focused on sport, finance, culture, and good news. All newsletters are published via Beehiiv.
In 2025, TDA won Newsletter of the Year at the 2025 Asia Awards of the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), and was nominated as one of the top three newsletters globally alongside The Telegraph and the Financial Times.
Podcasts The Daily Aus podcast is a daily weekday news briefing, launched in 2021. It has charted consistently among the top Australian daily news podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and is distributed in partnership with the iHeart Podcast Network Australia. The outlet also publishes the companion podcast No Silly Questions, based on the founders' book of the same name.
Social media The Daily Aus operates accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Its Instagram account, @thedailyaus, has approximately 650,000 followers as of 2026 and is the outlet's primary audience acquisition channel. The outlet is notable for producing news explainers in a visual tile format suitable for mobile consumption, and for its high audience engagement rate relative to comparable media accounts.
In 2026, TDA was cited by FT Strategies in a global report examining consumption of news by Generation Z. The report found TDA was a global leader in platform-specific news coverage,
Video The Daily Aus produces short-form video news content for TikTok and YouTube, styled as visual explainers aimed at first-time news consumers. The outlet has also produced branded video series for commercial partners, including the Adulting 101 series produced with car insurance company Rollin.
Editorial model TDA's journalism is built on four core principles: factual accuracy, neutrality, accessibility, and no assumed knowledge. Each piece of content is designed to explain context as well as events, starting from first principles so that readers with no prior exposure to a topic can understand it. This approach is particularly important in TDA's coverage of politics, economics, international affairs, and public health.
The organisation maintains a strict separation between editorial and commercial functions. An editorial policy, distributed to both staff and investors, formalises this independence. Commercial deals that require editorial compromise are declined as a policy matter. TDA's founders have publicly described this commercial discipline as a trust-reinforcing mechanism: the willingness to turn down advertisers is itself a signal of editorial integrity.
Exclusives In August 2025, The Daily Aus published an exclusive interview with Mitch Brown, a former West Coast Eagles player who appeared in 94 AFL games between 2007 and 2016. Brown came out as bisexual in the interview, becoming the first male player in the 129-year history of the Australian Football League to publicly identify as gay or bisexual. In the interview, Brown described the "hyper-masculine" culture he experienced during his playing career and said his sexuality had been a factor in his decision to retire. AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon called the disclosure "an important moment" for the game and praised Brown for his "great courage". The story was picked up by international outlets including NBC News, PinkNews, and Out.com, and was cited by academics writing on LGBTQIA+ inclusion in Australian sport.
Political Interviews The Daily Aus has established itself as a destination for senior Australian political figures seeking to reach young voters. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appeared on The Daily Aus podcast multiple times, with transcripts published on the official Prime Minister's website, and has agreed to a proposed youth-media-hosted leaders' debate organised by the outlet ahead of the 2025 Australian federal election. Both former prime minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Peter Dutton declined interview requests from the outlet ahead of the 2022 and 2025 elections respectively; following Dutton's defeat, TDA noted that every federal leader who had refused to engage with them had gone on to lose their election.
TDA has also interviewed Australia's Governor-General Sam Mostyn, opposition leaders Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor, National Party leader David Littleproud, Greens leader Adam Bandt, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Minister for Youth Anne Aly, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, Housing Minister Clare O'Neil, Education Minister Jason Clare, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher, Australian of the Year recipients Richard Scolyer, Dylan Alcott, and Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, NSW Premier Chris Minns, former U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.
In 2023, TDA was the only Australian outlet to secure a one-on-one interview with Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby during the 2023 State Visit of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Business model