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| WBZ Radio's Matt Shearer |
Unless you’re a regular on TikTok, you may have missed posting from Matt Shearer WBZ's News Radio's unlikely internet star.
Accorsing to The Boston Globe, Shearer's postings were some of the most widely viewed and shared in the New England news market last year.
Shearer, 37, has racked up millions of views online for the more than 103-year-old station on TikTok and Instagram, platforms where news outlets have struggled mightily to gain ground. His account, @reportermatt, has over 83,000 followers on Instagram, and @wbznewsradio has north of 200,000 on TikTok. Since he started at the station in 2020, Shearer has stood out not only for chasing the weird and wacky stories of New England, but for finding viral success among the lighter fare that populates social media.
“If you’re not more interesting than the other app, they’re going to switch to that other app,” Shearer said.
As newsrooms everywhere grapple with declines in audience and their underlying business models, Shearer has managed to give WBZ-AM an especially lively and popular digital presence. While he’s not covering everything — viewers would be hard-pressed to find many political or crime-themed videos — Shearer has helped introduce the station to a new, younger audience.
Shearer tells “stories that I, living in Los Angeles, would never click on if it were on a website,” said Taylor Lorenz, a former Washington Post and New York Times technology and internet culture reporter who launched her own newsletter, User Mag, this year. “But the way that he tells the story — it’s interesting to anyone.”
@wbznewsradio By request, trying to find something cool in Leominster. . #LeominsterMA #Massachusetts #CentralMA #NorthCentralMA #LancasterMA #FitchburgMA #SterlingMA #PrincetonMA #WestminsterMA #LunenbergMA #Boston #BostonAccent #MassachusettsCheck #MassachusettsTikTok ♬ original sound - WBZ NewsRadio
Often donning black jeans, Vans sneakers, and a dark hoodie, jacket, or T-shirt, Shearer looks more like the Massachusetts residents that appear in his videos than a typically polished broadcast journalist.
“People watch my videos and think I’m like this fresh-out-of-college intern who just got let loose on TikTok,” Shearer said. “But that’s not the case at all. I’m in my 30s, and I grew up in the ‘90s wanting to be a cool radio DJ.”
Shearer has lived in the state his entire life, an experience he said has helped him identify the strange but endearing idiosyncrasies of small-town Massachusetts and New England. He spent over 11 years as a producer, first for local radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan’s show on 96.9 WTKK — before they moved to GBH — and later as the executive producer for 103.3 Amp Radio’s “The TJ Show.”
“His ability to interact with people on the street is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” said Loren Raye, a former cohost of the “The TJ Show.”
He joined WBZ NewsRadio in 2020 to oversee the station’s social media presence.
Shearer’s early videos were often typical local news fare. But he soon began to hone his craft, spotlighting quirky characters such as Nick Lavallee, a Manchester, N.H., resident who makes custom action figures, including one of Shearer, and pushed for Manchester to be officially declared the chicken tender capital of the world.
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