This week, USA Today and The Tennessean in Nashville ran ads seeking two reporters, one for each musical superstar whose only responsibility would be to cover that musician. It’s a degree of attention that is often saved for the US president, especially as newsrooms continue to get smaller.

The advertisements made it clear that the pieces the reporter would write would not be filler and that they may be picked up by more than 200 local news sources. The shortlisted candidates would be required to investigate the enormous influence that women have had on culture.

Swift’s audience has expanded to new heights, and so has the significance of her music and burgeoning legacy,” the Swift notice added.

Similar language used in the bio for Beyoncé: “The global icon and superstar’s effect is felt across generations. She has significantly influenced everything, from how the nation perceives racial issues to how women regard their spouses.

The fan bases of women must also be covered for both positions. The reporters would be paid between $21.63 and $50.87 per hour, with the higher amount equalling a six-figure yearly pay. The reporters would need to go abroad to follow their subjects.

The stances were further clarified in a statement provided to Yahoo Entertainment by Lark-Marie Anton, chief communications officer of Gannett, the business that owns the periodicals.

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Taylor Swift are artists and entrepreneurs whose contributions to society and the economy are enormous. Beyoncé and Taylor are influencing a generation as they continue to have an impact on several businesses and our society. At the USA Today Network, our job is to give our viewers the material they want by covering the newsmakers who influence people’s lives all around the country in the areas we serve.

While there is little doubt that the ladies are great subjects both have previously had whole college courses created around them, as well as books produced about them the notion has its opponents who prefer that journalistic resources be employed elsewhere. A number of journalists have noted that Gannett, the largest publisher of newspapers in the US based on circulation, reduced its personnel last year. One such journalist is Adam Benson of the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In August 2022, 400 employees were let go, and in December 2022, another 6% of its news division employees were let go.

Is Taylor Swift Bigger Than Beyoncé? 

Which of these two recording artists Taylor Swift or Beyoncé can claim to have a larger fan base? They are both among the most popular musicians in the world, and both have fervent followings.

Beyoncé is on her Renaissance Global Tour while Swift is on her The Eras Tour, which is their different world tours. Both of their tours have had fantastic crowd attendance, and several of their performances have given rise to viral moments.

There’s no need to compare these two accomplished artists to one another in order to determine who is superior. They both have a certain amount of industrial dominance. However, let’s find out who may now assert to be the larger artist in 2023.

Throughout their careers, Beyoncé and Swift have both sold millions upon millions of records.

Swift has ten studio albums out, three of which have just been re-recorded and re-released, increasing her overall sales.

While Beyoncé has released only seven studio albums, she has been performing for a longer period of time than Swift. She did, however, put out five albums with her band, Destiny’s Child.

Although there are conflicting numbers, Best Selling Records.org estimates that Swift has sold 75,699,207 albums globally, with 1989 selling 14.7 million copies.

According to the same source, Beyoncé has sold 42,045,134 albums overall, with I Am… Sasha Fierce, which sold over 9.6 million copies, being her most popular. Beyoncé wins out if you factor in Destiny’s Child’s record sales, which totalled 29,952,691. We’ll solely count single sales for the comparison’s purposes.

Due to the platforms’ ability to connect them with their ardent admirers, Beyoncé and Swift both have sizable social media followings. On the largest social media platforms, they each have hundreds of millions of followers.

Swift only has 267 million Instagram followers compared to Beyoncé’s 314 million. Despite not tweeting in almost a year, Swift has 93.3 million followers to Beyoncé’s 15.4 million on Twitter. Swift has 79 million Facebook fans compared to Beyoncé’s 57 million, but Swift is more popular on TikTok with 19.4 million fans to Beyoncé’s 4.8 million.

Beyoncé beats the competition with 10.4 million more followers on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok when Twitter is excluded because she appears to have departed the social media network.

Streams

Utilizing streaming services is another technique to gauge how well-liked a certain artist’s songs are.

For each artist whose music is offered on Spotify, the most widely used music streaming service in the world, thorough statistics are kept. Beyoncé’s songs frequently take time to arrive on Spotify, while Swift is well-known for staying away from the platform and just putting her music to the platform in June 2017. The 2016 film Lemonade was three years in the making.

According to Songstats.com, which provides thorough data on each artist’s popularity, it appears that Swift will once again be the most popular musician in 2023.

Beyoncé presently has 35.1 million fans compared to Swift’s 78.7 million. At the time of writing, Swift had 92.4 million listens over the previous 28 days while Beyoncé had 52.2 million.

Awards

Because of the numerous prizes and records they have broken, both artists have gleaming trophy cabinets.

Both Beyoncé and Swift have garnered hundreds of accolades worldwide, making it difficult to determine which artist’s trophy case is more spectacular.

Keeping things local, Beyoncé stands out when comparing the amount of Grammy Awards given out by the Recording Academy.

Swift has had 46 nominations and 12 Grammy Awards, while Beyoncé has received 88 nominations and 32 wins, making her the artist with the most Grammy Awards ever.

Who then is bigger?

It is difficult to differentiate such pop culture idols from outstanding artists who deserve to be honoured in their own way. Both will undoubtedly be remembered by future generations and referenced alongside artists like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Whitney Houston.

Which of the two artists is bigger would appear to be an insurmountable challenge, but the answer can be taken literally.

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift Get Their Own Press Teams

The biggest newspaper company in the US, Gannett, has announced that it would recruit writers to cover Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, two of the greatest stars in music.

Gannett said in separate announcements on Tuesday and Wednesday that it was looking for two reporters who could capture the significance of their music, their growing legacies, and the impact both women have had across the music industry. This announcement came amid the fervour surrounding both artists’ record-breaking tours this year.

The two journalists would work for USA Today and The Tennessean, the publisher’s publication in Nashville, where Swift launched her career as a country diva before selling out arenas all across North America on her record-breaking Eras Tour.

According to the job description for the Beyoncé reporting position, published by Gannett on Wednesday, the publication is looking for a reporter who can examine how the “international superstar and icon’s impact is felt across generations” and how she has “been a force in everything from how the country views race to how women think about their partners.

The Swift reporter would have to “explain why the pop star’s impact only increases, what her fan base symbolises for in pop culture,” according to Gannett on Tuesday.

The positions are a reflection of the crazed fanaticism that has engulfed both Swift and Beyoncé, who is also presently on a world tour.

Swift’s cultural impact, even with the re-recordings of her older songs, continues to grow with each album. At one show, her supporters rocked the ground so violently that it recorded as an earthquake on a seismometer close to Seattle, costing thousands of dollars in concert tickets.

Beyoncé supporters swarm stadiums with silver and glittering hats and boots while dressed as cosmic cowboys and cowgirls for her concerts. When she sings the lyric “Look around everybody on mute” from the 2022 song “Energy,” crowds of people pause. They also hold up blue balloons to honour performances by her daughter Blue Ivy Carter. According to Billboard, her Renaissance World Tour achieved the most one-month box office revenue ever.

The Swift job posting on Tuesday received mixed responses, with some praising Gannett for trying to reach a new audience and others criticising the firm for recent mass layoffs of local journalists.

The USA Today Network, which is owned by Gannett, is dedicated to providing its readers with critical journalism, and that “means giving our audience the material they desire,” according to Kristin Roberts, chief content officer of Gannett.

According to Ms. Roberts, “Taylor Swift’s fan base has increased to previously unheard-of heights, and with it has come an increase in the music industry’s and our culture’s reliance on her music and increasing legacy.” She is important, relevant, and inventive, just like us, and she is defining a generation.

Newspapers frequently hire critics of music and entertainment reporters, but they seldom designate a reporter to focus on one particular musician.