Articles by: "Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter"

-concept art showing search with AI imagery to suggest SEO changes -

Publishers rethink SEO in the age of AI overviews

October 16, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Whether it’s the rise of LLM search queries, AI overviews or the black-box operations of features like Discover, search and SEO is undergoing a fundamental shift.

Publishers have built SEO strategies, audience acquisition teams and substantial revenue streams to capture consumers with search intent. Now, they are faced with referral traffic dropping anything from 5% to more than 25%. Despite Google’s proclamations that AI in search is driving more queries and higher-quality clicks, the reality is that premium publishers are feeling the pain.

With so much uncertainty in how consumers are interacting with AI when it comes to search, it’s hard to formulate strategies to adapt. SEO and audience experts at the Daily Mail and Bauer Media Group spoke to DCN to outline how they’re approaching search changes, and why publishers need to refocus on the fundamentals.

Search is not dead

A number of issues get conflated when talking about AI and search. The biggest culprit of immediate traffic drop-offs is Google AI Overviews, which have been rolling out over the past 18 months. These appear at the top of a search, summarizing key information from a range of sources.

But overall, search is not dying. Consumers aren’t moving away from Google and using other services to find information. Thus far, even the rise in ChatGPT seems to be additive to traditional search. But as publishers know, consumer behavior is far from static. And given the growth in use of these tools, this is bound to change and publishers need to make moves now to keep pace.

-Sparktoro research that shows that AI tools are additive to traffic for SEO-

Bauer Media Group owns more than 600 magazines, 400 digital titles and 50 radio and TV stations across the UK and Europe. Global Audience Director Stuart Forrest sees the most immediate threat not from using LLMs as search engines, but from how Google is reshaping the search experience. “Are there challenges to search traffic from Google? Absolutely,” he said. “But is there a meaningful challenge to Google’s dominance? I don’t see the evidence for that.”

Publishers have long operated on a clear value exchange: search engines index their content, and in return, they receive referral traffic that funds journalism. Carly Steven, Director of SEO & Editorial E-commerce at news publisher the Daily Mail believes that the premise of AI overviews fundamentally disrupts that balance. “They still use our content—but we don’t get the clicks,” she said.

This lack of visibility and control leaves publishers unable to shape strategies or measure impact. “We don’t know where our content is being used or how it’s contributing to AI responses,” Forrester noted. “And that prevents a fair value exchange.”

Barry Adams is an SEO and Audience Growth Consultant working specially with news publishers. He has decades of experience and insight from working with global media companies. Adams pointed out that while AI has accelerated these declines, the shift started earlier—with news avoidance, user fatigue, and diversified consumption habits. “AI just pushed it further.”

The stakes go beyond revenue. Steven underscored the existential risk: “If we can’t sustain the journalism that trains these models, the whole system collapses. AI is only as good as the content it consumes.”

The impact of AI on SEO (so far)

Despite near-universal agreement on these challenges, the impact on publishers is varied – for now, at least. Steven pointed out that it’s tough for the Daily Mail to measure the true impact because Google hasn’t yet separated out that data. “We aren’t able to distinguish between clicks that have come from AI overviews, and clicks that have come from normal search; it’s all bundled in together,” she explained.

However, they can see the impact on click-through rates when an AI overview is present. Steven told Press Gazette that when an AI overview appears in Google, the Daily Mail’s average clickthrough rate was 56.1% lower on desktop, and 48.2% lower on mobile.

Steven was keen to point out that the big double-digit drops that publishers are reporting in click-throughs is not the same as traffic. “For a news site like The Daily Mail, the keywords that we care about change every minute and hour; the news changes so quickly. So even if we can see that when there’s an AI overview present, the click rate drops, that doesn’t mean the traffic aligns with that,” she said.

The Daily Mail also has over 60% of search traffic as “branded” search, where people are searching specifically with the term ‘Daily Mail’. Half of their total traffic is also direct to their website. “That’s very high, and makes us much more resilient [to these changes]” Steven shared.

At the moment, AI overviews rarely appear against breaking news stories. Adams noted that publishers focused on breaking news do appear to be more resilient to AI-driven declines. This is also echoed by DCN member surveys which show non-news brands taking bigger traffic hits than news brands.

But those who also have background stories, explainers or coverage of topics like fashion trends and car reviews are feeling the pain. “There’s a genuine grievance there that Google is ‘stealing’ their traffic because that sort of journalism is still adding value,” Adams said.

These concerns also apply to evergreen content – articles and explainers which can be updated or don’t go out of date. Steven said that the Daily Mail hasn’t ever relied on evergreen content for traffic, and that she sees this as being more vulnerable to AI summarization. This puts publishers in a tough position as many have invested in evergreen content precisely to establish authority within Google search.

-Similarweb chart showing AI referrals by category for impact on SEO-

Bauer is also seeing traffic changes, which Forrest says are having a nuanced impact on their brands. The company publishes global entertainment and lifestyle titles like Grazia and Empire, but also has a large portfolio of specialist titles covering hobbies and interests from golf and angling to motorcycling.

They also publish a number of TV listing titles, from TV choice and Total TV guide in the UK (which sell 4 million print copies a week between them) to TV Movie in Germany. Forrest says the industry has a tendency to underestimate consumer inertia. “The reality is that an awful lot of people still go online and look at EPGs (Electronic Programme Guides) from both us and competitors every day to decide what to watch on TV,” he pointed out.

“That mass market consumer inertia, once you get outside quite a limited cohort of early adopters of change, I don’t see as having a meaningful impact [for these types of query].”

Bauer’s automotive titles have been impacted more with some queries, especially around car specification data. But Forrest emphasized that their work isn’t focusing on providing answers to consumer queries. Rather, they aim to build on unique insights from experts in those areas, adding value to that data.

Forrest sums up the current landscape as an attention challenge, and effective monetization of that attention. “We still see plenty of examples of growth in our business, and plenty of examples of recovery in our business,” he highlighted. “When you look at what’s driving that, it’s coming back to high quality journalism from people who know what they’re talking about. It’s really not any more complex than that.”

Strategies to adapt

With tangible changes happening and solutions to the value exchange some way off, both publishers emphasized the need to diversify reliance on Google search for revenue. Forrest said this was doable, but not if traffic drops off a cliff overnight.

“We want to protect Google traffic as much as possible, continue to evolve our approach, and then continue to diversify into other channels,” he explained.

Bauer’s teams are also focusing on turning those search-acquired audiences into more valuable consumers by encouraging newsletter sign-ups and investing in social and brand awareness. They are seeing some success with audience and revenue growth on Apple News, and have even commissioned some premium content specifically for that channel. Forrest pointed out that none of this was revelatory, but needs to be a priority.

“You clearly can’t rely on Google as being your primary traffic source,” the Daily Mail’s Steven echoed, pointing out that algorithm changes over the years have already proved its unreliability as a channel. “If it’s one way for your audience to reach you, that’s fine, but you wouldn’t want to have all your eggs in that basket now.”

Adams was even more explicit in emphasizing that a mindset shift needs to happen. “If you’re an SEO-mature organization… you’re not going to grow more traffic,” he said. “We’ve reached peak traffic. If you maintain traffic, you’re winning.

Curiously, given publishers’ long and stormy history with social platforms, both publishers have a renewed focus on their platform presence. Google’s indexing of Instagram posts has helped. In his experience, Forrest says that if someone is searching for a topic, recognizing a brand in search (whether that be their site or an indexed social post) can be helpful. “Brand recognition and ranking position are major drives of click-through rate,” he noted.

This is a key difference in the approach to social now. It’s no longer seen as a huge driver of traffic back to websites. But what Forrest describes as “good, old-fashioned investment in brand awareness and reputation” can pay off in other areas.

Steven explained that the threat of traffic drops has provoked evaluation of social strategies, and well-established playbooks are suddenly trendy again. “It has forced us to think really hard about who we are as brands, and where our audiences are, and being where they are, whether that’s on TikTok, or Reddit, or Instagram,” she said.

However the Daily Mail’s priority is to grow its fledgling subscription business. Their Mail+ partial paywall launched in the UK in January 2024, and into the US and Canada earlier this year. Steven described the subscription targets as “punchy,” saying that they are targeting “1 brand, 1 million;” aiming to reach 1 million digital subscribers by October 2028. As of July, they had 325,000 digital subscribers globally, including 50,000 in the US.

Adams recommends going back to basics; talking to customers and finding out why they come to you and what they want from you. Then, focus on tying them into your own ecosystem. “If you have a paywall, make sure it’s as smooth and efficient as possible,” he advised. “Make sure you have a dedicated app that’s very easy to install and great to use. Have newsletters that people can subscribe to and show them what they want to read.”

“If you are a content-focused publisher, news or otherwise, you need to find a way to prove added value that the AI bots can’t replicate. I think a lot of publishers are worried about that, because they can’t.”

Outlook and advice for AI-era SEO

Expectations for the future were mixed between the three experts. The need for a rethink and recalibration of expectations for publishers was a common thread. “We’ve always thought of the platforms as being audience drivers and traffic drivers,” the Daily Mail’s Steven said. “If there’s an acceptance that it’s more about visibility and brand awareness than about driving traffic, then we can calibrate our expectations around that.”

Adams believes that publishers should step away from generic, easily replicable content. “We have to have something worth paying for,” he outlined. “And that means you need to have an identity as a news publisher. You need to have a good grasp of what your readers want from you and make sure you deliver in that space.”

Licensing was highlighted as an option for some publishers, as many have done deals with AI companies. But there are only so many of those deals to go around, and not everyone is in a position to do those. This is unlikely to be a long-term viable strategy, especially for smaller organizations and start-ups.

There was also acknowledgement that the short-term is going to be rocky. “This is a weeding out,” Adams explained bluntly. “We will lose publishers, there will be casualties, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

“Online publishing has been too much of a free-for-all and a race to the bottom by chasing after clicks and throwing ads on everything… There will be a new normal…with stronger news brands who have a clearer idea of what they offer, with loyal audiences bound to them.”

Steven, however, was more concerned about what will happen to the diversity of information in the ecosystem in this scenario. “I worry that if that value exchange question isn’t addressed and resolved, we will end up in a much worse place with less diversity of voices, but because [AI overviews] are so easy and convenient, it’s just accepted,” she said.

Despite a 20+ year career in SEO, Steven said that she’s never witnessed a period as disruptive as this. The shake-up is unquestionably under way. Whether the publishing ecosystem is better or worse off afterwards remains to be seen.

Audiences | Featured Post | Revenue

Inside 3 premium publishers’ Apple News strategies

August 7, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Between changes to Google search, the evolution of AI queries and algorithmically-driven social feeds, finding new audiences is harder than ever for publishers.

Apple News offers something many of the other tech and social platforms don’t: a highly-engaged, quality audience keen to read. But publishers have been burned badly by platforms in the past. Many are cautious about crafting strategies specifically for yet another channel.

The dilemma is more acute for publishers with membership and subscription strategies. Balancing free and paywalled content can be challenging enough, before considering Apple’s own paid News+ offering.

Here’s how Scientific American, STAT News and Outside Inc. approach Apple News, from which content to publish to the next steps they encourage readers to take.

Reaching new audiences

“The big challenge for us, and for every publisher right now, is finding your audience and reaching people,” said David Ewalt, Editor in Chief of Springer Nature title Scientific American. He specifically pointed to Google’s increasing ‘zero click’ searches and AI summaries as causing a drop-off in new audiences. The primary advantage of publishing to Apple News, as compared with prioritizing discovery on other platforms, is the high intent of users who come to the app. “Aggregators like Apple News are incredibly useful in reaching new people, especially people who are passionate about reading,” says Ewalt.

Apple News is also seen primarily as a top-of-funnel acquisition source by Outside Inc., which publishes outdoor brands covering everything from climbing and skiing to backpacking and mountain biking. Chief Media Officer Heather Dietrick explained that the platform offers a more generalist audience than those who find them via Google search, and one more willing to spend time. “They’re definitely willing to stick around and read our long-form pieces, they have a big hunger for those,” she noted.

Health and medical publication STAT News, produced by Boston Globe Media, also sees Apple News as an exposure opportunity. “The way we envision Apple News from a STAT lens is that it is very much top-of-funnel brand awareness,” explained Engagement Editor Alexander Spinelli. “But I like to think that any person could end up being a paid subscriber.”

The paywall debate…on platform

For each of these publishers, deciding what to offer across Apple News for free and their own sites is a careful balancing act. To complicate the strategy further, publishers can also put content behind Apple’s own premium offering, Apple News+. While publishers are circumspect on the subject, it can be a direct revenue generator as Apple shares revenue based on a reader’s engaged minutes with a publisher.

For Outside Inc., this is an opportunity to showcase longform content. “We’re constantly looking at the data, seeing what the audience is responsive to, seeing what is more scarce on the platform,” Dietrick said. She explained that they are very flexible when it comes to what they publish across News and News+, depending on demand.

Despite having a registration wall and metered paywall on the website, Scientific American publishes the majority of its stories to Apple News. Ewalt said that this was because the priority for the platform is to get people exposed to SciAm’s stories, rather than as a conversion tool in itself.

STAT has clearer dividing lines. As a B2P – business-to-professional – publication, they keep more specialized content to the website. “We’re really succinct about what we choose to be free versus [paywalled],” Spinelli outlined. “A lot of [articles] that are public health related…which we feel the masses need to know will be free. That’s what ends up going to Apple.”

This suits STAT well as the Apple News audience is more generalized. But this also means they don’t publish to Apple News+. Spinelli said that they would prefer to nurture paying subscribers themselves than manage that relationship through a platform. “Our [premium] Plus model is so specific to our subscribers that we didn’t want to offer it anywhere else,” he explained. “We really nurture our Plus subscribers…it’s a really robust offering.”

An edition-based approach

One strategy which has proved successful for Outside Inc. is publishing “mini magazines” to Apple News+. The publication puts out a print magazine, Outside Magazine, which comes out four times a year. But they keep an eye on traffic and trends for the Apple audience.

“Often, we’ll package up content when we see that a particular topic is really drawing interest,” Dietrick shared. “We’ll surround that topic in a 360 way, package up content and make a mini magazine from it.”

This content can come from across any of Outside’s brands. It’s then pulled together into a bundle, and repackaged for Apple News+. “Readers get deep into a category,” said Dietrick. “They spend longer with it and consume more stories per session.”

As well as mini magazines, Outside also promotes guides created for other channels to Apple News+ as a magazine. Their Summer 2025 Gear Guide brings together reviews of over 800 products across their brands. This also allows the publisher to drive additional revenue with affiliate links.

“Apple has recently been prioritizing affiliate stories…so we’re giving them more affiliate content,” Dietrick said, explaining that reviews are already a key pillar for Outside Inc. “It’s already content that we’re creating for other referral sources and our sites, so we’re not creating anything extra for them … its great that Apple’s strategy aligns with ours.”

Encouraging further engagement

All three publishers make use of call-to-action [CTA] boxes in Apple News articles. Scientific American prioritize directing readers to content on their own site. “I’s a good way to get users back into our ecosystem and start showing them some subscription notices,” Ewalt noted.

By contrast, STAT are heavily focused on driving newsletter sign-ups. “We have a great offering of free newsletters, and if people are enjoying our free content, they’re more than likely going to enjoy our flagship newsletter,” Spinelli outlined.

STAT reappraised their CTA strategy at the end of last year, bringing in technology partners such as FlatPlan to manage more flexible and UX-friendly boxes. This has proved fruitful, with the team now able to experiment, track and measure what is working. “Any time we have a story now, we’re getting new [newsletter] subscribers, whether that’s five, or fifteen, or 20. Every new subscriber helps,” said Spinelli.

They chose to focus on newsletter sign-ups because they didn’t want to overwhelm users, as Spinelli explained: “We pick and choose where we focus our efforts [in Apple News], and then the second they get back to our site, they’ll get to see all the offerings and other things that we do.”

Outside Inc have a variety of strategies for Apple News CTAs depending on whether a user is known or new. “We’re always thinking about the signals that readers give us to say where they are in their own activity journey so we can figure out what we should put in front of them,” said Dietrick. She explained that new users are encouraged to read more from Outside’s channels. Known users are encouraged to sign up for newsletters or read more tailored recommended content.

Opportunities and limitations

For publishers who have a clear understanding of Apple News’ place and potential in a subscriber funnel, it can be a powerful tool. Scientific American’s Ewalt emphasised the high-quality nature of the users. “The Apple audience is a great audience for us. It tends to be the kind of consumers who are going to read our content and subscribe to the magazine,” he said.

Outside’s Dietrick emphasised that a successful Apple News strategy ultimately comes down to a partnership between audience development and editorial teams. “You need to have people who are looking at the data, seeing what’s working, being willing to make tweaks to it, and not have it drive any editorial decisions, but just shape what content you want to put in front of this audience,” she added.

All three acknowledged the limitations of longer-term Apple News strategies. Ultimately, if Apple’s priorities change, these traffic and revenue sources could easily fall away.

STAT’s Spinelli has a more pragmatic take. “The majority of mobile users in the world have this device that prompts them with this immediate access to information,” he said. “I realized that if I get a million page views on a story on Apple but only get one paid subscriber, a million people just saw STAT’s reporting and STAT’s journalism.”

“[Hopefully] you’re going to want to come back to us, maybe it’s not the first, or second, or the fourth or the 10th time, but that’s the funnel process. I’m happy to play the long game,” he concluded.

Icons that represent podcasting innovation

AI | Audiences | Featured Post | Innovation | Revenue

3 podcast innovations that build audience and revenue

May 15, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

The hype cycle is over for Podcasting. Now that reality has set in, it is exciting to see examples of publishers pushing the podcasting envelope – experimenting to drive innovation in the maturing market. Whether it’s using AI to expand to new audiences, or smart show bundling, there’s a lot of inspiration for those with their own podcasts or looking to launch.

Here are some impressive experiments and innovations in the podcast space:

AI translations

UK news publisher The Telegraph has been producing a podcast called Ukraine: The Latest daily since the start of the war. It has been downloaded over 100 million times since 2022, with episodes exploring military strategy, history, weaponry, economics, and more.

In February, to coincide with the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, The Telegraph launched translated versions of the podcast in Ukrainian and Russian. This was made possible using an AI-powered voice cloning and translation model. This creates a “digital likeness” of the presenters, closely mimicking the rhythm and nuance of their voices.

“To be clear, this is AI helping to present our journalism, not produce it,” said Associate Editor and presenter Dominic Nicholls in an introductory video demonstrating the technology. The translations help reach those with restricted access to news on the war, as well as expats around the world.

The AI model was adapted by The Telegraph team in-house, before being refined by a native Ukrainian speaker fluent in Russian and English. The Telegraph emphasises that all episodes will be checked to ensure translation accuracy, as well as fine-tune speed and pacing.

Although there have been experiments with AI hosts and translation, this is the first example of a media company deploying it on this scale. For a daily podcast, especially one where the information need is so critical, this is a worthwhile investment that will help it reach the people it needs to.

High quality AI translations like this will be beyond the budgets of many publishers. But as the translational tools improve and become more accessible, using AI translation to reach new audiences is worth considering. Editorial oversight, however, is vital to maintain trust and quality.

Bundled podcast subscriptions

Publishers have been experimenting with paid podcasts for some time now, as paywalling technology has improved. From The Economist putting almost all its podcasts behind a paywall, to The Local offering premium versions of its free weekly podcast for members, there are many variations of paid audio strategies.

One that stood out was the DMG Media’s launch of The Crime Desk. The publisher had seen success with true crime podcasts like The Trial of Lucy Letby. Now, it has brought all podcasts under ‘The Trial’ brand into one subscription bundle.

The Crime Desk offers subscribers ad-free bonus episodes on global trial cases. It also includes access to the archive of more than 200 episodes covering everything from the Holly Willoughby kidnap plot to the Diddy trial. Subscribers will also get new series released in their entirety. However, free listeners will only be able to access one episode a week. The launch offer is £1.99 a month, or £19.99 annually.

“There will always be a free trial to air – we’ve got to have a shop window. It’s arguably a public service as well,” the Daily Mail’s head of podcasts Jamie East told Press Gazette. A soft launch phase “had seen subscriptions well into the thousands, and at a similar conversion rate to the podcast industry standard of 5%.”

Building a paid bundle around groups of podcast topics is viable for publishers that produce a wide range of podcasts or with strengths in specific subject areas. However, East noted that although they’ve had success elsewhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean a paywall is viable. “You can only really launch a subscription model around a hit. There’s no point otherwise,” he told Press Gazette. “It needs to be pretty bedded in before you can do it, or achieve such huge scale that it’s a no-brainer. We’ve not quite reached that with any of the other verticals.”

Reusing popular print content

One unusual podcast launched last year is Your History, from The Times. The newspaper has published daily obituaries for over a century, many of famous people. The team realized that there was an opportunity to highlight some of the Times’ best writing, which happens here, as well as capitalize on audience curiosity in historical figures.

The twice-weekly podcast brings out”‘remarkable tales of lives well lived,” from musicians to politicians, scientists, and sporting legends across episodes averaging 10-15 minutes. Anna Temkin, deputy obituaries editor, presents the podcast.

This is an excellent example of taking existing content and transforming it into another medium. The obituaries pages of newspapers contain a wealth of fascinating life stories, especially when someone well-known dies. By simply reading out the obituary – a low tech and low cost solution – The Times makes this content accessible and relevant to a new audience who aren’t necessarily newspaper subscribers.

Podcasting has room for innovation

Reader revenue is an important strand for each of these publications. The Telegraph and The Times both have hard paywalls, and use podcasts as a top-of-funnel strategy to introduce listeners to their journalism. In these cases, applying strategies that help widen listenership through translation or opening up paywalled content is key.

Although the Daily Mail has some paywalled content, the majority is accessible to read for free. This allows the podcasts to build up a large audience.In this case, The Daily Mail has created a paid bundle around popular shows to monetize a smaller but more dedicated fan base.

The extent to which other publishers can use these tactics will depend on where podcasts sit strategically. If they’re a “shop window” to showcase journalism, it is worth exploring options to leverage podcasts to expand audiences. However, podcasts also have great power as a retention tool superserving a publisher’s most loyal readers. With continued experimentation and innovation, podcasts offer the potential to grow audiences and support, or even build, direct revenue. That’s not hype; that’s just smart strategy.

Audiences | Featured Post | Revenue

How MIT maximizes editorial value with newsletters

April 3, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

For subscription-driven publishers, newsletters can be a valuable way of building relationships with potential paying readers. But it can be a challenge to effectively promote newsletters and justify the extra work required to create them. However, MIT Technology review has seen success with a portfolio of editorially-driven newsletters published across the week. Key to their growth strategy is effectively reusing the newsletter content online to drive sign-ups, and maximizing opportunities to promote the newsletters across all MIT activity.

“Once someone has signed up to our newsletters, they’re two or three times more likely to become a subscriber,” said Niall Firth, executive editor, newsroom at MIT Technology Review.

With newsletters forming a key part of the publication’s subscriber funnel, promotion and growth of these products is a priority. Here’s how MIT Technology review structures its newsletter portfolio and promotes sign-ups to begin building those vital reader relationships.

Using the editorial to go deeper

MIT Technology Review has a variety of editorial newsletters in their portfolio. The Download is a daily weekday newsletter that features short, snappy summaries of key stories. It also includes a quote of the day, links from around the internet, and a throwback to a feature story that was published during the last year.

MIT also offers a selection of weekly “beat” newsletters. AI newsletter The Algorithm publishes every Monday, led by AI and hardware reporter James O’Donnell. Energy and climate newsletter The Spark comes out every Wednesday, and The Checkup, focused on health and biotech news, is released on Thursdays. Editor in Chief Mat Honan then publishes The Debrief, an analysis of the biggest tech news story, every Friday.

In terms of editorial strategy, these newsletters begin with a full editorial piece of around 700 words, which can be used for scoops, analysis, or context around bigger stories. “These are written from scratch every week,” Firth explained. “[The writing] that goes in there is in there first, so if you sign up to a newsletter, you’ll get to read it before it appears anywhere else.”

The second half of these beat newsletters is used for other relevant links, news and bite-sized updates, as well as subscription upsells and event promotions.

Each beat newsletter is led by a named editor, as they find readers connect better with a person or expert. Editors are encouraged to be conversational. “They’re like your smart friend guiding you through [topics]. So, if something is complicated in the world of your beat, your reader can rely on them. They’re going to lay it all out to you and tell you what’s important, which bits you can ignore, what you should be aware of,” said Firth.

It also offers the opportunity to go behind the scenes in a way web-first articles don’t. Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review’s senior climate reporter and writer for The Spark newsletter was at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit recently, a conference dedicated to energy technology. For the newsletter, she wrote about what it was like to be there, and the undercurrents around emerging technology and climate change. “The vibes were weird,” she reported, using a more explanatory and informal tone than would normally be used for an article.

Publishing newsletters as stories

One of the key drivers of MIT Technology’s newsletter growth strategy is effective use (and reuse) of the content. Although newsletter articles are written first and foremost for the inbox, they are then republished the following day as a story on MIT Technology’s website, with a note pointing out that newsletter subscribers saw the story first.

This achieves an often tricky balance between offering newsletter readers exclusive content. It offers an exclusive window to subscribers, yet allows MIT to promote articles to as wide a readership as possible.

“Once they’re on the site, they get treated and promoted like every other story,” Firth said. He also pointed out that sometimes these newsletter-first stories do as well as, or even better than, standard web-first pieces.

When newsletter articles are published online, they appear with multiple notes about originally being published as newsletters, with sign-up boxes to capture interested readers. This also provokes a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out), and highlights that the value of the newsletter is in being the first to get relevant news.

MIT’s newsletter-first strategy lets the editors go deeper on stories that have already been published, as well as smaller or more timely scoops. Firth explained that there may be a big story from earlier in the week with off-cuts or reporting that didn’t fit into the story, but can be used as a whole new story for the newsletter. “That does double-duty: It’s cool to read an interview with a researcher on a topic that only got a line in the main story but is worthy of a whole separate interview. But then it calls back to the main story, and all fits together,” he said.

Although newsletter stories contain multiple calls-to-action (CTAs) for the relevant newsletter, Firth also noted that contextual newsletter sign-up boxes are promoted on relevant stories throughout MIT Technology’s site. Energy stories will have a promotion for The Spark, AI stories for The Algorithm, and so on. This means site visitors are given visible and frequent opportunities to sign up to newsletters, even on a first visit.

Another tactic which has seen success in driving audience growth is visible promotion of newsletters at MIT events. The publisher has a stable of large-scale conferences and focused gatherings, from their flagship EmTech emerging technologies summit to digital leadership “classroom,” Future Compute.

“At all of our events, we have these massive boards in the lobby of the event. They have QR codes for all the different newsletters, with a specific UTM so we know it came from that event for that newsletter,” Firth outlined.

He explained that both new event registrants or new subscribers to the brand get a dedicated email about the newsletters they can sign up to. For example, a registrant for their EmTech AI conference would also get an email from James O’Donnell, newsletter writer for The Algorithm, showcasing their weekly AI deep dive.

Relevant newsletters are also promoted at online events, including webinars and live streams.

Other growth tactics

Firth outlined a number of other strategies used to grow their newsletter audiences. MIT Technology Review has a hard paywall for around a third of the stories on the site. But for stories promoted on social media platforms, the team will offer access in return for signing up to a related newsletter.

“On Instagram, if we have a new big feature around AI, we do Instagram Stories where the ‘front page’ of the story would be the article, and the second page is a sign-up box to The Algorithm to get access to it,” said Firth.

The team has seen success using this tactic with some more surprising platforms like Reddit, too. Firth noted that Reddit attracts people who want to go particularly deep into various topics, rather than surface-level technology coverage; an audience their newsletters suit well.

Last year, the publisher experimented with exit intent popups – banners that appear when a user looks like they’re about to click off the page. Firth shared that these drove 4,000 new sign-ups over the test period last year. They are hoping to roll out a wider test of exit intent popups this year.

In October last year MIT launched a free six-week limited series newsletter, Intro to AI. Newsletter courses like this can be a good way of letting potential readers sample work without committing to a more regular newsletter. Each newsletter in the course takes the opportunity to promote the Algorithm.

Chief Executive Officer and publisher Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau told A Media Operator that since launching, the course had attracted 17,000 subscribers with an average open rate of 57%. Now, the publisher is looking at other complementary areas to its regular beat newsletters, like healthcare.

MIT Technology review has also been experimenting with newsletter promotion swaps as part of its growth strategy. Axios and Semafor have been early partners for this, with newsletters exchanging ads for the other publication to attract interested audiences who are already engaged with newsletters.

Crucially, all newsletter promotions make it as simple as possible to sign up, with readers being asked for just their email address.

There’s no silver bullet or one tactic that will result in sustainable newsletter growth. MIT Technology Review’s approach is to ensure that beat newsletters are consistently promoted across relevant pieces online. Every opportunity is taken – from events to social stories – to funnel audiences into topical newsletters. It is this combined, holistic approach that fuels MIT’s success.

young person looking at phone with credit card out to suggest that young audiences will pay for news

Audiences | Featured Post | Revenue

Yes, publishers can turn young people into paying subscribers

March 13, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Gen Z gets a bad rap from the news industry. Whether it’s news avoidance, the refusal to pay, or the rise in following news influencers rather than media organizations, myriad issues make it challenging for publishers to build relationships with younger audiences. Yet young audiences will pay for products that add value to their lives.

The belief that younger audiences will engage – and even pay – for media products drove the foundation of Youthquake. Danuta Breguła, MD for Paid Products at Ringier Axel Springer Polska and Liesbeth Nizet, Head of Future Audiences Monetization at Mediahuis nv are the people behind the Substack publication that focuses on how publishers can connect with young people.

Crucially, it’s no longer the case that young people will simply “grow into” paying for news as they get older and have more disposable income. Nizet explained that this is a change that she’s seen over the 15 years she’s worked in journalism. “News is not a destination any more,” she observed. “[Young people] consume news between all the other cool things. That’s why platforms are really interesting for them, because they give you news, but also all the other stuff.”

Although the push to go directly to a news app or site may be lower, Nizet believes that younger audiences can be persuaded to pay for news. That belief drives her work every day at Mediahuis.

“You see that young people want to pay for a new skin in Fortnite, or something on Roblox, or a nice feature on Airbnb for example, because it inspires them, or triggers them,” she explained. “Why aren’t we able to find what triggers them [to pay] for something as important as independent journalism?”

Thinking beyond the article

One issue Nizet highlighted is that many news organizations still think in text and image. Even video on news sites is usually landscape with a clumsy play experience. “It’s not the experience that they have on other platforms, and there is really some space for us,” she emphasized.

Short-form video — in portrait for mobile viewing – is the preferred consumption format for 61% of Gen Z and young millennial consumers surveyed by the Reuters Institute. Short-form text was the next most popular (40%), with long-form text ranking third in young audiences’ preferences (32%).

*source:* *https://valuableyoungaudiences.com/*

One example is looking at explainer videos which perform well for creators and influencers. News brands are ideally placed to do well from these, but Nizet said that this requires journalists showing their faces. To engage young news audiences, “we need to show our vulnerability,” she outlined. “We need to show how much effort it is to create a really good article, that it’s not just some piece of content like an influencer unboxing something.”

Nizet pointed to Danish news publisher Zetland as an example of offering alternative formats. Zetland identified that many of its readers wanted to get an update on their commute, and didn’t necessarily want to be looking into their screens. They invested in building an audio app with journalists reading out their stories. Now, 80% of their audience consume the news that way, and 45% of their subscribers are in their 20s and 30s.

Building trust off-platform

As well as innovating around publishers’ own platform experiences, there is value in investing in a presence wherever younger people are, in order to build those relationships. French daily newsbrand Le Monde told Press Gazette that investing in content for primarily Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube had helped initiate relationships with new audiences, who they then saw become paying subscribers after two or three years.

Nizet noted that although the end goal of being visible on social media should be to tease audiences back to publishers’ own work, there is a bigger role at play. “We can show them [on social] what our journalism looks like, how trustworthy it is, how we show different perspectives, and how we make content that is relatable to their world,” she said. “That is what will make them pay for it.”

“They don’t want to pay for some instance that is preaching to them how they need to live their lives. That is often what we still have in traditional media: we are going to tell you how the world is, and how you should think. It worked for other generations, but it doesn’t work for [young people].”

Although younger audiences are more likely to turn to social media for news, they are also very distrustful of the information they find on it. A Gen Z Report from Oliver Wyman Forum & TNM found that Gen Z are almost twice as likely to fact-check news, but also that they trust people like them 2x as much as “mainstream” news outlets.

A chart showing young news audiences' news behavior in particular the fact that they use social platforms to get news, but don't trust the news they get there. — *source:* *https://valuableyoungaudiences.com*

With that in mind, publishers should be mindful to have journalists in the newsroom which reflect the audiences they want to attract, and make them visible. At Mediahuis, they have invested in a team of Gen Z editors to help challenge and change mindsets, as well as encourage relationship-building with those audiences.

A two-way relationship

Another opportunity social platforms present publishers is the ability to engage and interact with young news audiences. This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course. Nizet noted that older generations also comment and read what others are saying with as much interest as the original content.

“We are not just senders, but we act like senders,” Nizet explained. “We see platforms as traffic drivers. But a platform can do so much more than just traffic building. It’s about building trust and engagement, and letting people get to know your journalism.”

Crucially, this requires a re-adjustment of who publishers assess as their competitors. “We’re not competing against [traditional] media any more,” Nizet pointed out. “We are competing against cat movies, and influencer drama… that is the real competition.”

There is a balance to be struck between investing in building audiences on platforms publishers have little control over, and showcasing work to build trust. Nizet draws a clear distinction in her work at Mediahuis. Off-platform is the hook, where the question should be how journalism can be showcased and trust can be build. On-platform is about the reward, the value, the exclusivity and the community.

Looking outside publishing for inspiration

However successful individual publishers might be at attracting younger audiences, Nizet believes that real change will come from looking outside the industry at what works in other areas. This is the focus of her and Breguła’s Youthquake newsletter, and a report on How publishers can grow with today’s youth.

“We really want to go beyond the obvious things. So for example how Taylor Swift or Red Bull can help us understand and monetize younger people,” Nizet said. “There’s also a link between content creators, influencers and news brands…which could offer you a totally different perspective as a journalist than what you are used to, and it can be so enriching.”

It’s a sentiment that Zetland CEO Tav Klitgaard echoed to The Publisher Podcast this week. “The product has to be much better,” he said, referring to news sites and apps. “You have to compete with Spotify and Instagram. You shouldn’t compete with a legacy print paper, and it seems like a lot of people in the media industry are still believing that’s [who] you need to compete with, which is just totally wrong. You need to compete with YouTube.”

A shift in thinking to engage young news audiences

Nizet is optimistic that publishers can build a relationship with younger audiences, even a paying one. She pointed out that there will always be a need for news, and that there is a lot of opportunity for those who can think outside the box.

Crucially, the answer to these challenges won’t come from the way publishers are used to doing things right now. “We need to shift how we think,” Nizet emphasized. “We don’t control the internet… but we can see how we can adapt to it in formats that [young people] like, and stories that they like and feel relatable.

“At some point, they will pay for it. I don’t mean when they are 30 or 35, I mean at the moment that they are feeling the value that we can offer them.”

Building a relationship where that value becomes evident to Gen Z is not a quick task. Strategies put in place now will take years to pay off, as with the example of Le Monde on social media. But it is a vital job that news publishers need to actively be planning for, if they want young audiences to pay for news in the future.

6 verticals in 1 app: inside New York Magazine’s new app strategy

January 16, 2025 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Apps are hot again. After the boom in investment in interactive publisher apps in the early 2010s failed to produce much in terms of audience growth or return on investment, many publishers quietly closed their apps, turning instead to putting content on social platforms and relying on responsive design for the mobile experience. But app strategy for media brands is shifting.

As the cost of producing apps comes down, coupled with the intense competition for attention on platforms, publishers are reconsidering their app-approach.

The intent is different this time, however. Rather than being a vehicle to drive discovery, publishers like the FT with lightweight offering FT Edit, the New York Times’ subscription-only NYT Audio app, and even start-ups like the Baltimore Banner are using their own apps to build deeper relationships with superfans.

New York Magazine is the latest publisher to take another look at apps. They previously launched one in 2013; a replica of the print magazine with interactive features, which was shut down a few years later.

Last month, they announced the launch of a new flagship mobile app. Notably, it includes all six of New York Magazine’s verticals as well: Intelligencer, The Cut, Vulture, The Strategist, Curbed, and Grub Street.

So what made an app an attractive proposition this time around, and what are their primary aims with it? “Over 70% of our readers read on mobile,” Priyanka Arya, SVP of consumer revenue at Vox Media said. “Mobile is the primary point of entry, and the primary reading experience for our subscribers and readers. So we wanted to create the best reading experience for those users.”

Arya also said that an app was one of the top features requested by subscribers, both through solicited and unsolicited feedback. As a result, the team decided to look at creating a mobile-first experience that would first and foremost serve subscribers.

Strategy: One app, six titles

The decision to have all six verticals within one app may seem unusual, but it reflects the subscription setup of New York Magazine. Rather than offer standalone subscriptions to each vertical, readers who wish to access Vulture or Curbed instead pay for a New York Magazine subscription which gets them access across all verticals.

Arya emphasized that having the verticals and the appropriate branding was important rather than pooling articles across the portfolio by topic, for example.

“We see very different behavior across our audience,” Arya said, explaining why they offered them all in one app. “There’s folks who really go deep into one vertical, there are folks who enjoy multiple and go across our portfolio, and we wanted to create an experience that served both users as well as enhanced discovery for those who may only be single-vertical readers.”

When users enter the app, there are a variety of different experiences they can have. If they’re very focused on one vertical, they can set it as their homepage and tailor the experience. But Arya said that they make an active effort to encourage people to read across the brands with toggle options for quick takes, deep divers and long reads. “We see folks who do read across verticals are among the highest engaged and highest retained,” she noted.

The app therefore also serves as a discovery vehicle for these other brands. Readers may have different levels of familiarity with other verticals when they subscribe. “We see through our newsletter efforts that there may be loyal Vulture readers or The Cut readers who are just going to those home pages, so they’re not experiencing everything that we’re putting in print or we’re putting in some of our other verticals,” Arya pointed out. “But they tend to really enjoy it when they do find [others].”

A premium reading experience

Rather than a bells-and-whistles experience, app users these days seek clean, fast-loading reading. But publishers still have to develop a strategy that differentiates their app experience from web browsing to encourage downloads.

The New York Magazine app has built in a number of features to offer a premium experience. As noted above, there are convenient toggles between brands, and the ability to set a homepage while easily navigating to other sites. The app also offers personalized notifications so readers can get alerts for what they most care about, and a better ad experience than on browser.

Perhaps the most compelling proposition of the app is curation. The app includes a ‘Great Stories’ section that pulls together a curation of timely stories and the best pieces from across the portfolio, selected by editors.

“Our feature stories that run in our print magazine and across the portfolio online are among our most popular no matter what interests you may have or vertical affinity you may have,” Arya explained. “That is a place that doesn’t exist on web that can really help you navigate through some of our best pieces and read what our editors are recommending.”

Helping users find the best stories without the help of algorithms is an increasingly appealing prospect. Because personalization was available for push notifications, the team were keen to have somewhere to showcase the best of their editorial across brands, with human curation.

A long-term play

For many publishers, return on investment (ROI) can be a stumbling point for apps. Although they’re cheaper than ever, they do still require upfront investment, often without the promise of short-term, or even medium-term returns.

For Arya, the app is a long-term investment. “What we’re hoping is by getting as many subscribers as we can to download and use the app, we can increase engagement and therefore retention,” she explained. “There’s a pretty lucrative argument around retention, which is always a longer term play, but a much more sustainable play.”

“Our top 20% engaged subscribers have a 30 to 40% higher retention rate than our average subscriber. That’s substantial. So our goal is to continue to move more people into higher engaged tiers.”

Retention increases are far from an overnight task. But a better retention outcome translates to a solid – and more sustainable – revenue outcome in the long term.

Although the New York Magazine app is primarily a retention play, Vox has a strategy for encouraging non-subscribers to download the app with the goal of converting them later. Users have to create an account up-front. Then they get a number of free articles before hitting the subscriber wall, similar to the web experience.

“We built the app with our subscribers in mind; a lot of the feature development was looking at those reader habits and building for them,” said Arya. “But we are encouraging readers who aren’t subscribers to download the app, and we do have a strategy to engage them within the app and ideally convert them.”

Promising early results

At the time of writing, the New York Magazine app is in the top #10 of the Magazines and Newspapers section of the app store. It also has very good ratings and feedback, and requests are already coming in from subscribers for features such as saving and favoriting articles. An Android version of the app is also in the works.

Crucially, Arya sees it as more important than ever that publishers focus on their own properties. “With algorithms changing and platforms constantly changing, betting on your direct traffic and your loyal audience is something that’s been really important to us, and I think should be for other publishers,” she emphasized.

Audiences | Featured Post | Innovation

Here’s what Bloomberg, Yahoo and Reach are doing on WhatsApp Channels

November 14, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

WhatsApp may be the fourth most popular social network in the world. However, to date it has not been a place publishers have had much success building audiences. Over the last few years though, the Meta-owned messaging app has been building out capabilities for brands to connect with its thousands of millions of users.

One promising component, WhatsApp Channels, was launched globally in September 2023 following a few months of trials. Rather than being a two-way communication tool like Communities or chats, Channels are a broadcast feature; the first time WhatsApp has experimented with this type of one-way communication.

Despite the relative newness of Channels, WhatsApp is an established, trusted and popular platform with audiences. A year on from its official launch, publishers who made the move to launch Channels early on are seeing success. Here’s how Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Reach plc are using Channels to connect with global audiences, drive pageviews, and experiment with content sharing.

Bloomberg: leaning into global audiences

Bloomberg was one of a few publishers invited by Meta into a pilot program of WhatsApp Channels 18 months ago. This meant that they were present when Channels was rolled out more widely, which Katie Boyce, Head of Digital Editorial at Bloomberg says was an advantage. “Being there at the start has really helped us grow that audience,” she said.

The main Bloomberg News WhatsApp Channel has 2 million followers. The publisher also has a number of more targeted accounts, from Bloomberg India with 32k followers and Bloomberg Africa with 36k followers, to Spanish and Portuguese language Channels with 9k and 1k followers respectively. They also have a separate Bloomberg Opinion account, to separate out columns from the news shared in their primary channel.

“We have a robust global audience so we’ve been looking for an opportunity to do something with them for a while. And, given WhatsApp’s international user base, they opted to launch region-specific Channels. During the run up to elections in India, they also experimented with offering free articles to audiences who came from newsletters and WhatsApp Channels as a way for them to sample paywalled content.

This was used as a tactic the other way too, as Boyce explained. “In [articles about the] India election, we then promoted following us on WhatsApp and subscribing to the newsletter as a way to get more of an engagement tool to reach those users directly.”

However, Boyce said that the majority of users are finding Bloomberg’s Channels within the app themselves as they’re browsing, searching, or onboarding.

The team receives metrics on traffic and clicks from WhatsApp Channels. And, given that sharing news links is a very strong user behavior on the platform, it makes sense to promote links there. But it’s not just links that work; images and polls also perform particularly well.

“We have been experimenting more with image list posts, to see if we can add variety in the channel,” Boyce said. “Polls have also seen some nice engagement. But generally, we focus on having an image with every post, because those perform best.”

Despite Bloomberg’s success so far, they still view their foray into WhatsApp as an experiment. “For us, our top priority from a distribution perspective is to build direct connections with our audiences,” Boyce emphasized, noting that audience-building on homepages, apps and newsletters is where most effort is focused. “But we see WhatsApp as an experimental platform, particularly in key international markets where we can reach new audiences.”

Yahoo Finance: focused experimentation

Yahoo Finance has also benefited from being early to Channels. They spotted that Meta was leaning into the platform last year, and once Channels were available more widely, they set one up. “We approached it like any new platform where we can go and meet different audiences, and figure out what they like,” said Yahoo Finance’s Head of Distribution, Michael Kelley.

Kelley believes the early mover advantage has helped propel them to 2.6 million followers. “Organic growth is hard to come by on mature platforms,” he said, explaining that from an audience development standpoint, opportunities like this are rare as a rush of people check out new tools, and platforms make it as easy as possible to discover. “From a publisher standpoint, getting in early and posting things consistently that are resonating, you can catch that initial window of organic growth.”

Unlike Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance has decided to concentrate on one Channel and build engagement and growth there. So far, the team is concentrating on posting, building up workflows and best practice, and seeing what works best.

Charts and data visualizations have done especially well, leaning into the publication’s authority in the finance space. He has also noticed increased interest in international stories, with one chart about the Mexican peso performing particularly strongly.

Yahoo Finance is also still in an experimental stage with WhatsApp Channels. “I’m encouraging our editors to experiment, have fun, try to see what the audience is reacting to, and focus on the brand and displaying the quality content,” Kelley emphasized. “Everything else will follow.”

Reach plc: a strategic approach to WhatsAppcommunities and channels

UK regional publisher Reach plc has had a presence on WhatsApp for some time. They were early experimenters with WhatsApp Communities; a unified space for multiple groups with various topics and interests. Audience & Content Director Dan Russell explained that Reach saw an opportunity for a different type of communication with Channels, and they now run both.

“For instance, we’ll have a WhatsApp Community for a local area, but a WhatsApp channel for all our money content. So it’s the same platform, but different mechanisms and results,” he said, noting that many of Reach’s 70+ regional publications will all write about money in one way or another.

However, Russell has noticed some differences between the two tools. Channels, in his experience, grow very, very quickly. But the returns – pageviews in Reach’s case – aren’t nearly as high as Communities. Reach has 2.3 million people following various Channels compared to 270,000 members of Communities. He told the World News Media Congress in May that Channel members only drove around 1 million page views a month, but by contrast, almost every Community user reads at least one thing a month.

The engagement disparity is partly down to the way WhatsApp notifies for new content between the two. But Russell acknowledged that for them, the focus on growing a UK audience on Communities for Reach’s primarily UK-based content makes it more relevant than the more global audiences reached through Channels.

There is an opportunity here for the publisher. “Channels gives us access into different markets, especially for things like sport; Man United, Arsenal – those teams have members from around the world,” Russell said. “Channels in some countries is a lot bigger, massively bigger than they are here. So what that’s allowing us to do, which is very valuable, is to reach those people wherever they are.”

“Say 45% of [a Channel’s] members are from African countries. Do we commission a piece on an African football player specifically for Channels, does that get a better click through rate?”

Like Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance, Reach has found that growth to Channels is rapid without requiring much additional promotion, especially in other countries. Russell noted that their Arsenal Channel has 550,000 followers which have all grown completely organically.

“Polls do very well,” he said, when asked what types of content they were experimenting with. “We want people to click through because at the end of the day, that’s how we make money.

“But the other thing we do is share YouTube videos in there, because YouTube’s videos in Channels work really well. You can watch it [in the app], and get your share of the advertising revenue that YouTube puts on it.”

As Meta continues their work on Channels, building out more detailed analytics, Reach is continuing to invest effort into their presence on the platform. They also use Channels as an opportunity to promote related newsletters, which helps get more first-party data on users.

Challenges with WhatsApp Channels

Despite the positive organic growth all three publishers have seen on WhatsApp Channels, the experience has not been without its challenges. Metrics are still very basic. Publishers aren’t given much of a sense of the demographics or who the users are who follow them, unlike other social media platforms.

“They don’t have established analytics, but that’s not surprising given it’s basically a year old… Even with Instagram and Facebook before that, it takes time for the platform to figure out and build, from a product and engineering standpoint, those robust back-end analytics,” Yahoo Finance’s Kelley pointed out.

He says this has led to a lack of clarity over what the best cadence is for publishing to a Channel. Some publishers post hundreds of updates each week. Yahoo Finance posts once or twice a day to their Channel, with Kelley worrying that too often will turn people off.

Although the broadcast-style nature of Channels can be appealing to publishers, Bloomberg’s Boyce said that the lack of interaction with followers could be a challenge. “We’re able to track what users click on, but we’re not able to engage with them like a traditional social platform,” she said, explaining that users can only respond through emoji reactions.

Reach’s Russell said that it had taken some hoop-jumping to get their Channels verified by Meta. But he believes this has immensely helped growth when people are looking for trusted Channels to follow. He warned other publishers that it can be difficult to get a workflow going that makes it worth it, “because you do have to put a lot of work in to get going. But once you are going, it’s a big benefit to us.”

The elephant in the room when it comes to any Meta-related platforms is the somewhat turbulent relationship they have with publishers, particularly news organizations. Major brands were courted for many years when Facebook prioritized getting quality content into newsfeeds, only to have licensing fees, journalism initiatives and huge followings canceled or reach dialed down when it no longer suited Meta. More recently, there have been regulatory conflicts in Canada which has seen news completely banned on Facebook and Instagram and has had a deep impact on Canadian media.

Russell’s approach to this is pragmatic. “We still get good referral traffic from Facebook,” he said. “It’s nowhere near what it was, but if it’s there, we’ll use it, and if it’s not there, we won’t!”

Yahoo Finance’s Kelley is also unconcerned. “Our approach to social media is more about the brands and audience development, and meeting people where they are with our high quality content,” he explained. “So there’s not as much of a downside or risk of a rug pull, because we’re not dependent on it for that.”For these publishers, riding the wave of growth while WhatsApp offers easy tools to build a following to Channels is a no-brainer. As more Channels are set up, it will be harder for publishers to stand out from the crowd. But any strategy which explores WhatsApp Channels as a component should also build in a way to turn unknown, relatively anonymous followers into known, direct audiences.

Why Dow Jones’ new Leadership Institute will have peer learning at its core

October 10, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

In September, Dow Jones announced the creation of the Dow Jones Leadership Institute, a commercial proposition focused on executive learning and leadership.

Plans are still in their early days. But Alan Murray, former Fortune Media CEO and newly appointed President of the Dow Jones Leadership Institute, believes that senior executives are in need of a trusted authority to guide them through leadership challenges. They also think that Dow Jones is in an ideal position to do this.

“I’ve been covering business for more than four decades. I don’t think in those four decades there’s been a time quite like the present, where the speed of change is so rapid, and the multiplicity of issues that leaders of large organizations have to grapple with is so great,” Murray explained, outlining the opportunity Dow Jones spotted. “You’ve got a technology revolution going on that’s moving very fast. ChatGPT was announced in November 2022, and within 60 days, the people who run large companies were being told their whole company was going to be disrupted by this technology that they’d never heard of 60 days ago.”

Murray also pointed to other global forces affecting businesses, from energy transformation and decarbonization to geopolitical threats. Many larger companies were founded in a world where they could operate freely globally. “That’s no longer the case any more,” he noted. “There are all sorts of geopolitical threats, massive rethinking of supply chains, and realigning manufacturing facilities.”

As global pressures affect the way businesses run, Murray is emphatic that executive leadership has to transform as well. Given Dow Jones’ position as a world leader in business information and news, he believes he can create an offering to help executives navigate these changes.

Bringing together communities under one umbrella Institute

Dow Jones already has an existing collection of executive communities. The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council is one of the most well-known. It also boasts CFO, CMO, CIO and CCO Networks.

These vertical networks are valuable as they bring together C-suite executives from different industries but with similar responsibilities to share experiences and advice. What Murray hopes to do with the Dow Jones Leadership Institute is create a horizontal ‘umbrella’ network, which links them together.

“We’re thinking about: who are the groups of people who we can bring together, who can learn from each other? And what are the other information services, data and research services, education and coaching that we can provide to help them through that journey?” he said, explaining that many of the challenges such as AI disruption are the same across job roles. “How do you lead in the face of such rapid change? How do you rethink what you’re doing?”

One of Murray’s key observations from his experiences moderating C-suite technology panels over the past few years is that the conversation may start on technology, but it always comes back to people. “We’re talking about, how do I get my middle managers to embrace this technology, not reject it? How do I get people to adopt new ways of working?,” he illustrated. “Those conversations have left me convinced that while technology is evolving very rapidly, and lots of people are focused on how we make technology evolve rapidly, not enough people are focused on how leadership evolves to match it.”

The Dow Jones Leadership Institute will focus its attention on addressing this, rather than specific technology solutions. But it also faces another challenge: time. Senior executives are notoriously time-poor, and continuous learning is a particularly acute challenge for them. Murray said that they are also reluctant to show their vulnerabilities to their board or employees.

The value of peer learning communities for executive leadership

Addressing the time issue will mean creating opportunities for executives to stay up to date with what’s happening in ways that suit them best.. Murray outlined that the Dow Jones Leadership Institute will be serving those needs through creating thought leadership content, videos, education programs, surveys and research data.

But first and foremost, the priority will be on peer learning. This is, from Murray’s experience, what senior executives value most: “having the opportunity to share ideas, experiences and plans confidentially with someone who is in a job similar to their own.”

Virtual events will have a role to play, especially as Murray’s mandate is to “make this a global organization.” But in-person gatherings in the US will be the main focus as the Institute starts out. “There’s something different about being together in-person, things happen when you have an in-person interaction that don’t happen virtually,” he observed. “So there’s a role for both, but I do believe in-person gatherings tend to be more powerful.”

Other outputs will depend on the demands of members. As a business with membership as its primary revenue stream, Murray emphasized that they need to be “relentlessly focused on our members and provide them with any services that they think would be helpful.”

Details of membership pricing are still being planned out. A membership to the WSJ’s CEO Council comes in the ballpark of around $25k. So, a similar range would seem appropriate for building up a pricing plan for the Leadership Institute.

Sponsorship will be an additional revenue stream, but the driver will be membership. Dow Jones is in a strong position to build this, as it has doubled its digital news subscription footprint over the past four years under CEO Almar Latour. Murray noted that Latour is dedicated to making the Leadership Institute a “significant pillar of the future of Dow Jones,” and has joined the executive leadership team as a show of commitment.

Complementary to news coverage

Dow Jones is a leading provider of business news, and is home to titles like the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch. Education and community services are a very different proposition to news, but Murray believes that their deep well of expertise, and robust business news acumen, gives them an edge in building an executive Leadership Institute and communities around it.

“A lot of the changes in how you lead are very news-driven. It changes around new concepts, new technologies, new things happening,” he explained. He also points out the fact that traditional universities, and even private professional service companies can be slow to adapt. [Dow Jones] “is an organization that’s all about the new, it’s all focused on the leading edge. What’s happening right now that is going to change the way you have to look at leadership in the years ahead? That’s going to be our secret weapon.”

For Murray, the measure of success for the Dow Jones Leadership Institute in the years to come will be the response of its members. “It’s member appreciation, member engagement, member renewal,” he said. “Whether it’s measured by an NPS score or by the size of the membership, our goal is to provide value to members, and the members will show us if we provide that value.”

Although there are many elements of the Leadership Institute which other publishers could look to for inspiration, Dow Jones has a clear advantage in having its own established C-suite networks which it can bring together. While first party data, particularly information about registered and premium subscribers can help an organization develop an offering such as this, few media companies have successfully built their own community initiatives. However, particularly as social networks decline for distribution and audience building, extensions like these show the value of leveraging audience relationships to drive deeper connections and new revenue.

Audiences | Featured Post | Innovation

Four newsletter strategies from leading publishers

August 22, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Despite the challenges thrown at publishers by obfuscating metrics or deliverability changes, newsletters continue to grow in importance. Media companies increasingly use email newsletters as a key tool for maintaining relationships with audiences away from social media, finding new readers, building habits, and opening new revenue streams.

At The Publisher Newsletter Summit, publishers came together to share strategies, advice and case studies on everything from newsletter monetization to audience growth.

Here are some of the strategies that they shared:

1. Don’t be afraid to center personalities

The role of journalists with followings has grown more complicated than ever in recent years. One theme that emerged at the Summit from a number of the sessions was that – if managed right – individual members of your team can serve as an incredible audience-building tool.

Women’s membership and community publisher Black Ballad started a newsletter from founder Tobi Oredein as a way to create a bond with the reader, because people build connections with humans, not brands. “Social media is very noisy,” Oredein outlined. Given that Black Ballad has paywall, she finds that “there is a barrier with people who can’t afford a membership. The newsletter is free, so everyone that’s signed up with their email gets that newsletter every week. So it’s a way to create that personal relationship.”

Leaning into this has also opened up revenue opportunities, although Oredein said that she chooses partner organizations very carefully. A recent campaign with the Founder’s Letter newsletter saw Black Ballad work with Maltesers around maternal mental health as Oredein was about to give birth to her second child.

“I wrote this newsletter on letting go of the Superwoman complex as a mum, second time around,” she explained. “It all came together and the newsletter opened the partnership; we had an editorial video that went alongside the essay, and it just went nuts. People loved the partnership. We realized that my personal newsletter opens up partnerships. Now the newsletter stands alone as the most requested advertising channel and is the most popular source of revenue for Black Ballad.”

There are risks with building newsletter audiences around individual journalists, but these can be managed. It’s an issue UK news brand The Telegraph faced when a big-name writer for their political newsletter left, and the team had to decide what to do next.

“We’ve grown [the newsletter] substantially since then,” Head of Newsletters Maire Bonheim said, explaining that they gave another political journalist a chance to fully front the newsletter. “He’s in your inbox at exactly 1pm every day. He’s really passionate about it, and he gives it his own edge. People have built up a habit and a relationship with him.”

2. Prioritize newsletters for retention and conversion

Special interest publisher Immediate Media monetizes many of its brands like Good Food and Gardeners’ World through subscriptions. Head of CRM and Customer Retention Matt Nash sees newsletters as playing a vital role in their subscription strategy, especially for long-term relationships.

“One of the big reasons why we’re so focused on newsletters from a subscription capacity is that 25% of our app subscribers received or read a newsletter before going on to subscribe,” he said. “So on average, there’s about 18 months between someone registering on Good Food and then converting to an app subscriber.”

“We also find that conversion from trials – mainly we run free trials going into paid subscriptions on the app – is around 10 percentage points higher for people that have previously been on our newsletter base before converting to a subscription.”

Nash shared that they have a two-part email strategy for pre- and post-subscription. The first half is focused around getting eyes on the website, showcasing the product and the subscription offers. “Every newsletter we send is an opportunity for us to try and convert someone if they look like they’re likely to subscribe,” he explained.

Once someone has converted, the focus switches to the “core readership phase,” where newsletters are part of a multi-channel tech stack optimized to try and get existing users to continue their subscription. The publisher uses a range of personalization options, from content type to send frequency and time to hit the readers at just the right frequency for them.

3. Consider repackaging content for educational courses

A number of publishers offer newsletter “courses” with a clear start and end point as an alternative way of engaging audiences. As part of its newsletter strategy, Pew Research Center launched an email course, which allowed them to leverage their reports and blog posts on U.S. Immigration. More recently The Guardian released a five-week email coaching plan called Reclaim Your Brain, which has attracted over 140,000 sign-ups.

Seeing examples like these, Ruth Hardy-Mullings, Head of Content at Community Care, a publication for social workers, wondered if newsletter courses could help solve some of their challenges. Their biggest driver of traffic was their weekly newsletter. She was also aware of the friction readers faced finding time to log onto the website and proactively seek out training content. A course delivered straight to their inbox would be a good way to prove value.

They launched some test courses in March 2021, delivering six emails a week over a three week period. “We took the content from longer guides and hosted it within the body of the email itself, so it solved that problem of having to go and log in on the site,” Hardy-Mullings explained. “Someone was able to open up their email, read the content and get that learning wherever they are, whether they’re in a car before they go and do a home visit, on their commute home, making use of those small amounts of time that people do have.”

Each email had a recap section at the beginning, a progress bar to keep people motivated, further reading links, and a reflective exercise at the end. Hardy-Mullings noted that signing up for a finite period of time was helpful for professionals who get thousands of emails. “The general feedback was that people really loved the convenience of the course and that format of learning, a good way that could genuinely fit into their working week,” she said.

Email courses may not suit every publisher. However, they can be a strong way of repurposing evergreen content, reducing friction points for membership organizations, or giving samples of journalism for paywalled publications, to name a few use cases.

One of the most revealing sessions at the Summit was Maire Bonheim and David Alexander, Head and Deputy Head of Newsletters respectively at The Telegraph. They talked about how to turn around an underperforming newsletter, and noted that they often have to use different tactics across almost 40 newsletters in their portfolio.

Alexander was keen to emphasize that although metrics have a place in your newsletter strategy, they need to be the right ones. “If you put all your effort into getting a massive list, and you trick people into signing up to your newsletter, they’ll get it. But no one will care because they didn’t mean to get it in the first place,” he explained. “You’ll have a massive list, and over time, your email provider will think it’s spam, and they’ll just put it in everybody’s junk. Pursuing vanity stats is a fool’s game. Massive lists are not the aim. You want people to read your stuff.”

Clearing lists and pursuing slower, more genuine engagement is a braver path to take, especially with other commercial and business pressures publishers face. Bonheim said that they have different time periods for list cleaning different newsletters. “If a newsletter is a daily send, then we wait a shorter amount of time before we list cleanse, whereas if something’s weekly or even monthly, we wait longer,” she explained.

The Telegraph was also facing an issue where when some marketing emails were sent to editorial newsletter segments, readers were getting confused and newsletters were ending up in the promotions tab.

“As a whole at The Telegraph… the volume of emails had gone up hugely, and we needed to get smarter about our overall email strategy and cleverer about who we segment and target,” Bonheim said, explaining that they send warnings about removing readers from lists if they don’t ‘Click to stay’. “So to combat that, we became much more stringent with our list cleanse emails, and that seems to be having a positive impact.”

The takeaway

These strategies may not work for every publisher, and one theme which emerged strongly from the Publisher Newsletter Summit is that newsletters can be used for a wide range of different purposes. The key is to be very clear for each newsletter what its purpose is, and how that will be measured.

“[Key metrics] are so different across all our titles,” said Alexander of his work on The Telegraph’s newsletters. “I’ve worked on newsletters that have had almost 1,000 words in them, and people want to read them more than anything. I’ve also looked after newsletters where it’s all about getting people through to the site. You have to be really clear on what’s important.”

Whether it’s exploring the potential of short email ‘courses’ or letting editors take a personal lead, there are plenty of ways to freshen up a newsletter strategy. But whether this is through iterative changes, pivots or launches, keep the newsletter’s purpose front and center.

The Economist on the value of consumer research

August 1, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

The Economist is an industry leader when it comes to subscriptions innovation: Last year, they paved the way in audio by paywalling all but one of their podcast portfolio. The Economist’s multi award-winning Espresso app has been used as a blueprint for other publishers looking to offer a sample of content behind a cheaper paywall. Earlier this year they also launched the largest brand campaign since the early 2000s in a bid to attract younger readers.

What binds these initiatives together is a strong consumer research team. In addition to brand building and surveying about new initiatives or products, this team is also involved in almost all aspects of the organization, from retention efforts to optimizing its growing B2B business.

The Economist’s Global Head of Consumer Research Seema Hope believes that this is a function more publishers should be seriously considering to optimize subscription efforts. There is real value to be gained in getting to know audiences on a deeper level, even for those without paywalled products.

Getting to know consumer research

Hope’s Consumer Research team is one of the few which has ongoing communication with readers. “We get a lot of dialogue through editorial; people write in,” she noted. “But that two-way conversation is where we come in, and we take that really seriously. We’re there to represent what consumers are saying, and it’s our job to be frontline and independent on that.”

The team is made up of a mixture of disciplines, from UX and design to data and research. Hope firmly believes that it is more important than ever to bring these together rather than operate in silos. “You want to make sure that you’re understanding everything about the consumer, not just the way they’re interacting with a product. You want to understand their needs and motivations,” she explained.

This does add a layer of pressure on research teams to specialize in multiple methodologies. But Hope has seen this be advantageous for careers. Her team has people who are strong in UX, qualitative research and talking to people, as well as experts in qualitative and statistical methodologies. As consumer researchers, being able to operate across all of these means that they can work more effectively with teams across the business, from product to consumer marketing. “We touch nearly every aspect of the organization. And that can only get wider,” Hope said.

An internal and external independent voice

One reason the consumer research team at The Economist is so effective is because they believe in taking stakeholders on the research journey with them. “We won’t just deliver a project and say: ‘Here you go,’” Hope said, explaining how they anticipate any resistance to findings. “We start in partnership with them, working out what the objective is, what the business challenges are. Then our job is finding the right methodology to get them to a deeper understanding.”

Most of the projects the team are involved with are “quite iterative, with constant dialogue,” so findings aren’t a surprise. Hope also outlined that her researchers are often embedded in other teams while a project is ongoing so that everything is transparent. For example, if a consumer has made a statement about user experience in a video, that video is shared with the relevant people in The Economist’s Slack channels.

This perception extends to their interactions with participants, too. “It’s really important that we’re independent when we’re talking to consumers, and we make it really clear that you’re not going to hurt anyone’s feelings [with honest feedback],” Hope said. Constant and open dialogue with customers helps, as does keeping each other’s biases in check internally, with the team ensuring they’re not asking leading questions or putting a spin on data interpretation.

Currently working on growth and retention – once customers are acquired, how do we best keep them, as well as brand perception. Also students and what loyalty means for a news org.

Uncharted territory with Podcasts+

One prominent example of the Consumer Research team’s influence was in in shaping The Economist’s Podcasts+ program. Last October, the publisher moved all but its daily The Intelligence podcast behind a paywall, offering a separate podcast subscription product.

Planning for this was a challenge as virtually no other publishers had made such a move (and still haven’t!). Many consumers will have never come across a paid-for podcast until they hit The Economist’s paywall.

The decision to charge for podcasts was one the whole company stood by. It seemed incongruous to have such a significant product available for free when nothing else was? But they had concerns about how audiences would respond. Hope’s team started with needs, behaviors and motivations. This shaped their messaging and approach.

“It was interesting the way the project evolved. Our consumers were telling us, ‘I can see why you’re doing this. You value your journalism. It’s really in-depth. It’s well-researched. It’s amazing to hear the voice of the journalists in my ear. I feel a real personal connection to this person,’” she explained. “So in the end, our consumers told us the kind of language that we should use when talking to them.”

It took months of conversations and rigorous testing before they arrived at a model that made sense for the publication, as well as one consumers would take up. The Intelligence daily podcast would remain free as a daily touchpoint. However, all other weekly and daily shows would be available for $4.90/month, or as part of the full Economist subscription package.

Hope says that there has been uptake not just of the podcast-only package, but also to the full subscription. One finding that her team were able to pick up was the perception of increased value now that the podcasts were paywalled. “Once you start charging for something, people put more of a value on it. So it’s changed that perception of quality content because they’re now paying for it, and increasing their listening,” she noted.

Now, their focus is on understanding how to move people along the funnel from free to podcast to full subscriber. Hope’s work is never done; consumer research is an ongoing dialogue as tools, technology and behaviors evolve. “I think it’s naive to think you get it right the first time. It’s naive to think that you stop learning. So we rarely say, ‘That’s the end of a project’,” she said.

Lessons from The Economist’s consumer research

Hope has had over 16 years working in audience research, and firmly believes it’s a role all publishers should have to inform decisions across the business. It’s a role that changes and evolves. “But at the very crux of it, we are, as publishers, curating and creating content for a person,” she emphasized. “If you don’t understand what they’re thinking and the why, what, who they are as people, it’s very difficult to adapt what you’re doing.”

We may have more data and insights than ever before into our audiences. But this can’t always provide the full picture about what is going on with consumers. To truly create products that audiences not only enjoy, but are willing to pay for, benefits greatly from insights that run deeper than data. For The Economist – ranked sixth most effective subscriber conversion publisher globally – having a dedicated consumer research team to get under the skin of what really makes their audience tick is clearly paying off.

A picture of young teens walking on the road towards gender equity

Audiences | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post

Young people diverge on gender equity. News leaders need to act

May 9, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

Something is shifting with Gen Z. Data from Gallup shows that in the US, women aged 18 to 30 are now thirty percentage points more liberal than men. That gap opened after decades of a roughly equal spread of worldviews. As media organizations seek to attract, engage and retain younger audiences, understanding what drives them and accurately representing them will be essential. However, as the news media struggles with increased polarization on many fronts, it appears that gender equity is rising on the list of contentious topics.

This divide is a result, and signal of, something more than young women simply becoming increasingly liberal. Research from King’s College London in February showed that, specifically when it comes to attitudes to masculinity and women’s equality, there is a growing division. In some cases, young men today are no more supportive of action on gender equality than older men, despite generally being more socially liberal.

A growing number of people – one in three in the UK– think that gender equality has been “solved.” Yet when it comes to the news, women’s perspectives remain “firmly niche,” according to The Missing Perspectives of Women in News report. “The proportion of people who believe that feminism has gone too far, that equality has been achieved, that’s growing across all groups,” the report’s author and researcher, Luba Kassova told us. “Gen Z young men are leading though: A higher proportion of them seem to think that.”

Source: The Missing Perspectives of Women in News

Women’s expert voices remain significantly muted in high-profile news genres such as politics, where men’s share of voice is up to seven times higher, and the economy, where men’s share of voices is up to 31 times higher. It’s not just female expertise that’s lacking: In 2019, the coverage of gender equality issues constituted less than half a percent of all news coverage in the U.S.

But do news organizations have a role to play in building understanding around gender issues, and closing the gap in attitudes between young men and women? And if so, where do they start? Kassova shared some context around these issues and steps newsrooms can take.

Including missing perspectives

Kassova’s first piece of advice is that newsrooms need to build on the work many already have underway to make sure that those perspectives which are not usually heard, including young women, are part of their coverage. “The more male-dominated the coverage is, the more it becomes a fertile ground for the view that everything is fine, because the news agenda doesn’t reflect the perspectives of women, who tend to be marginalized,” she explained. She notes that her research has shown for every female voice, there are three male voices in online coverage.

There have been concerted efforts among many organizations to improve diversity across the board, with Kassova’s research showing that a third of women hold top-level leadership positions in newsrooms. However, this hasn’t provided the critical mass previously thought necessary to improve women’s visibility in the news. “The relationship between the number of women in organizational resources, in newsgathering and in news outputs is not linear,” despite previous hypotheses, her report states.

The biggest issue, which particularly impacts younger people, is the culture in newsrooms and news leadership. It continues to be dominated by men who are older, white, educated and richer (MOWERs). “A more homogenous group of people who set the tone, set the culture, set the rules of what constitutes a story, which stories should be prioritized,” said Kassova.

She says that this really inhibits progress when it comes to serving young people. “All these biases lead to substantive organizational challenges, including the under-representation of young editors and reporters, the intersectional invisibility of young female employees, and content of reduced relevance to young audiences,” she recently wrote in Press Gazette.

For newsbrands who want to accelerate their efforts, the voices of women should be amplified at each stage of the news value chain, from news leadership and newsgathering to news coverage and consumption. Kassova has authored a report, From Outrage to Opportunity: How to Include the Missing Perspectives of Women of All Colors in News Leadership which gives detailed recommendations for how to go about this.

Counter misunderstandings on gender equity issues

One starting point when it comes to what to cover is addressing the very strong misunderstanding among people of all ages about what feminism and gender equality is. “There’s a mis-perception that it’s a zero-sum game, where women are elevated at the expense of men,” Kassova pointed out. “There are plenty of publications fuelling that narrative by using condescending terms when they cover either young people, or young men,or men in general. And that doesn’t help.”

“What’s really important is for journalists to educate society as to what it actually means; that it’s not a zero-sum game. There’s so much research that has been done to show that where there is a higher level of gender equality, everyone – including men – tend to be happier, more prosperous, safer… So it’s really important for journalists to act as a conduit for truth and to raise awareness of what feminism means, and what equality means.”

Countering the damaging zero-sum perception involves talking to both feminists and anti-feminists. Kassova explained that journalists covering gender are much less likely to engage with the male perspective of what men find to be troublesome in the narrative around gender. But digging into that can actually unearth some different perspectives and build bridges with reluctant audiences.

Source: How younger generations are dividing on masculinity and gender equality.

“Young people live in different worlds because the social media that we construct for ourselves presents different worlds,” she said. “The only way to bridge that is to reflect people’s different perspectives. And there isn’t enough of that happening. The ideology that we carry too often dictates the sources that we speak to. I think we need to be very mindful to counteract them, to present different perspectives so that everyone feels heard.”

As a practical example, this can be exploring how the millennia-old patriarchy has impacted both men and women. Although women are by far the biggest victims of the system, men suffer from it too. By not engaging with that, we end up with a situation where social issues like the #MeToo movement are presented as a men vs. women conflict.

“We have to stop that,” Kassova highlighted. “You can only achieve gender equality if dominant genders and all genders surrounding work and move in the same direction. What’s happened until now in many feminist narratives is men and women are pitted against each other, very often seeing men purely as perpetrators, and women as victims. And there isn’t a more sophisticated narrative.”

“The way to deal with it is really to be equitable, and to cover issues with compassion rather than judgment. There is not enough solution-based journalism and there is not enough understanding.”

Involve younger audiences in news coverage

With some parts of the news industry contracting significantly, age is something that news leaders have prioritized. But although there is an acute understanding that change needs to happen, this hasn’t always been approached tactically.

“One of the perennial questions strategically is how do we bring younger audiences in?” said Kassova. “But there the conversation tends to be around, how do we make the output that we’ve already thought about, the stories that we’ve already crafted, more attractive to audiences? There isn’t enough self-reflection to look at, what are the organizational barriers that lead us to produce content that is disengaging?”

This links back to the MOWER leadership issue highlighted earlier. The average age of a journalist is 47 in the US, and 43 in the UK, so there is already a generational mismatch between those who produce the news, and those who they want to consume it. But the answer is not necessarily to flock to TikTok.

“What’s really important is for news organizations not to think just about what platforms they go to, but what are the perspectives that haven’t been heard?” explained Kassova. If the structural and cultural issues within newsrooms are addressed, and marginalized perspectives prioritized, the rest will fall into place.

For those who aren’t persuaded by the need to cover underserved audiences, there’s a strong economic incentive too. “Covering more diverse perspectives, and having more equitable coverage leads to increased revenue, because it brings in new audiences,” Kassova pointed out. “There is about $11 billion waiting to be won by the news industry given the consumption gap that exists at the moment: around 11 to 12 percent. If the industry closes this gap by one percentage point a year, then in the next five years, there’s an additional $11 billion to be made.”

We need news coverage that is compassionate and equitable

Polarization in society can be driven by and inflamed by the media. Newsrooms have an important role to play in highlighting women’s perspectives and stories, as well as counteracting some of the misunderstandings and zero-sum arguments around feminism. If these voices aren’t heard, divisions in society, and among younger people, are only going to grow.

“I am a big proponent of equitable coverage and compassionate coverage,” Kassova concluded. “It’s really important because that’s the only way we can actually break the polarization that happens on so many levels; intergenerational, intragenerational societal polarization, global polarization. I think compassion is the glue that will bring us back together.”

One point Kassova was firm on is that more research needs to be done around Gen Z and their attitudes. There may well be growing diverging views within the genders as well, and as an industry, we need to work to understand the drivers of these changes, particularly as we work to build our audiences – and news leaders – of the future.

Rappler has built a community platform to create its own digital town square.

Rappler invests in community to support the future of news

April 4, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Media Reporter

A few years ago, social media platforms were seen as the “digital town square,” where people could come together in communities around shared interests and passions. But as the platforms have turned towards feeds full of algorithmically-generated recommendations – and further away from professional news – few publishers are confident in building communities on platforms they aren’t sure will continue to support them.

This is something that the team at Filipino online news website Rappler have been thinking about for some time. Rappler co-founder and CEO Maria Ressa (winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize) was among those in the news business noticing a decline in social media traffic. She also saw how the algorithms were creating deep silos of information for individuals, creating an “information dystopia.” Rather than continue to reinforce the role of platforms in building information communities, Ressa and the Rappler team felt there was a better way.

“The insidious manipulation of Big Tech – inciting fear, anger and hate for profit – has destroyed the public sphere and the crucial discussions needed for democracy,” she wrote in a launch post for Rappler Communities. “It’s time to build our shared reality and redefine civic engagement, to restore trust.”

This community platform is a true digital town square

Rappler launched its own community platform as an iOS, Android and web app in late December 2023. The approach is intended to create a true digital town square, moderated by Rappler’s own journalists, which connects people with their interests and passions. From local politics to tech, food and climate change, there are chat groups (called channels) to cater to a wide range of audience interests.

These channels are organized according to the beats Rappler covers. It offers a way to introduce audiences to the journalists, and cultivate a more direct relationship, which humanizes reporters.

Community Lead Pia Ranada thinks that Rappler’s professional journalists are well-suited to cultivate their community. “Journalists have always traditionally been the gatekeepers of information,” she explained. “We believe we write what people need to know, and what the public interest is. And we have the interests of the public at heart because we want to keep them informed. We want to give them facts and not propaganda. We want to give them information that is timely, is verified, and is comprehensive.

“As people who deal with information dissemination and journalism and fact checking on a daily basis, we think that we would have this role. So, a platform that combines our journalism, coupled with engagement with our audiences is something we’re uniquely positioned to provide.”

There is a particularly acute need for community-building that incorporates the media in the Philippines, given that journalists are regularly vilified. “When you go into chat rooms and you see Maria or another Rappler reporter asking you what you think, there’s something there that builds trust,” said Ranada . “We care enough that we want to bring you into our app and our chat rooms. We care enough that we will tag you and let you know that we have a question that we’re crowdsourcing, and that your questions matter. These little things speak volumes about how a newsroom treats its audience, its community.”

This principle carries through into the name “Rappler Communities.” The approach is not just a one-way relationship news. Rather, Rappler’s team wants to harness the community for their journalism. “Crowdsourcing things, getting civil society to talk about their issues and amplify their concerns. I think those build action, and I think those build community,” Ranada said, giving examples of action. “In the end, the whole point is to build trust, which benefits not just journalists, but society.”

The Rappler Communities app’s decentralized approach

Rappler has built its community app on Matrix; an open protocol which allows secure, decentralized communications. It is similar to Slack in the way channels are accessed. However, Rappler felt that it was very important that the publisher owned the app rather than cultivating a community on a third-party platform.

“Having an app is a tighter communication and distribution effort. [Our audience is] in a piece of tech we made for them,” Ranada explained. “It’s a way to ensure that if something bad happens with the other Big Tech platforms, we always have our backyard that we can depend on. It’s under our control. And that’s an assurance to our community.”

AI has also been built into the app from the start. AI moderators work alongside the journalists to keep conversation civil, although members can always appeal to a human if they think the AI has incorrectly blocked something. The app uses bots to post relevant stories to relevant chat rooms, and for fun, has a games bot which sends questions and quizzes to some of the channels.

Although Rappler has a membership program, Rappler+, the community is free to anyone as long as they register with an email address. However, the Rappler Community does have a private group in the app just for Rappler+ members where they get updates about upcoming stories, events and briefings.

Nurturing the Rappler news-based community platform

As any publisher who has attempted to start a community knows, keeping it going after initial launch is no easy task. Ranada said that she is beginning by tapping into the loyal base of Rappler readers rather than attracting people who aren’t yet familiar with the brand. “Our target is to involve people who are our fans, our loyal base,” she outlined. “This is a gift to them that we’re trying to lean into this loyal base even more and introduce them to our journalists.”

From there, they plan to grow and expand to other communities, groups and audiences from an existing position of strength.

Since launching in December, the channels have been useful for crowdsourcing. For example, a new policy was recently announced in Manila about a ban on e-bikes on major roads. After the news broke, the team went on the chatroom and asked the community what they thought.

“It was really helpful to our journalists to see that, oh, this is what they think, and we got to directly quote from them,” explained Ranada. “We created instant quote cards based on the quotes people sent in, then we amplified them on all of our social media accounts. So that way, people who are chatting on our app also feel that their voices are amplified.”

That’s not to say it’s all smooth sailing. Ranada acknowledged that not all reporters are community builders: “We’re used to chasing stories but not really tending to a community. But we think this is something that we’re training into all of our reporters, every staff member.”

Part of her role as Community Lead involves highlighting best practices, and bringing experienced moderators together to share handbooks and guidelines on how to moderate or start chats in the communities. “We have our own coordination channel where we help each other,” Ranada said, explaining that best practice is communicated to different units. “What do I do when no one’s answering my call-out? What’s the best way to ensure this community chat is well-attended? Or how do I convince this particular person to join?”

One early learning Ranada was keen to share was that they were initially unsure which channels to create. “At first, we thought that the hard topics like justice and human rights would carry the day because our audience is naturally drawn to that kind of content,” she explained. “But actually we’ve found that leaning into the softer sections has been rewarding. We even have a chat room where our sales team gives away discount coupons from our brand partners.”

The next step is to look at potential monetization options. But because the Rappler Community is still in a very experimental phase, this is something Ranada is approaching very cautiously.

Communities as the future of news

Underpinning all of this is Rappler’s belief that journalism and community cannot exist without each other. On the launch page, for Rappler Communities they stated: “Trustworthy information and news cannot survive in the toxic environment of today’s social media platforms. And a positive, empathic community is not possible where malicious, manipulative content is allowed to thrive.”

It’s also a way to futureproof the publisher against the threats of generative AI and its impact on SEO. Ranada expressed a fear that LLMs (Large Language Models) are at risk of crippling sites like Rappler if snippets of their content are displayed without encouraging clicks back to the website. But an app – especially one that builds habit and alerts to breaking news events – potentially makes it even easier for users to stay up-to-date.

“If people are used to, ‘Oh, I’m going to get notified anyway by Rappler the moment something big breaks, I click the notification, I end up on the page, I won’t have to search it on Google,’ those things help newsrooms survive and stay relevant and stay embedded in people’s habits,” she speculated.

For Ranada and the Rappler team, staying relevant to their readers is the best way to navigate the quickly-changing landscape. “The more news products we create that are really attuned to our audiences, the more [publishers] will survive and thrive in this environment,” she encouraged.

Search is not dead

The impact of AI on SEO (so far)

Strategies to adapt

Investment in social and brand

Outlook and advice for AI-era SEO

Reaching new audiences

The paywall debate…on platform

An edition-based approach

Encouraging further engagement

Opportunities and limitations

AI translations

Bundled podcast subscriptions

Reusing popular print content

Podcasting has room for innovation

Using the editorial to go deeper

Publishing newsletters as stories

Linking newsletter strategy with events

Other growth tactics

Thinking beyond the article

Building trust off-platform

A two-way relationship

Looking outside publishing for inspiration

A shift in thinking to engage young news audiences

Strategy: One app, six titles

A premium reading experience

A long-term play

Promising early results

Bloomberg: leaning into global audiences

Yahoo Finance: focused experimentation

Reach plc: a strategic approach to WhatsAppcommunities and channels

Challenges with WhatsApp Channels

Bringing together communities under one umbrella Institute

The value of peer learning communities for executive leadership

Complementary to news coverage

1. Don’t be afraid to center personalities

2. Prioritize newsletters for retention and conversion

3. Consider repackaging content for educational courses

4. Prioritize list-cleaning for a healthy newsletter strategy

The takeaway

Getting to know consumer research

An internal and external independent voice

Uncharted territory with Podcasts+

Lessons from The Economist’s consumer research

Including missing perspectives

Counter misunderstandings on gender equity issues

Involve younger audiences in news coverage

We need news coverage that is compassionate and equitable

This community platform is a true digital town square

The Rappler Communities app’s decentralized approach

Nurturing the Rappler news-based community platform

Communities as the future of news