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Addressing the collateral damage of news avoidance

March 7, 2024 Chris M. Sutcliffe – Independent Media Reporter

The proportion of people avoiding news content is alarmingly high. According to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report, the public self-reports high levels of selective avoidance: 36% of people in the surveyed markets avoid the news “sometimes” or “often.”

That has implications for news organizations seeking to grow, engage, and inform audiences. That, in turn, limits the ability of those titles to hold power to account.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is Director at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. He is also the co-author of a new book entitled Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism, which delves deeper into the causes of and solutions to news avoidance in greater detail.

In an interview about the book, he tells me that the idea arose from his work on the annual Digital News Report. “We noticed that in the United States almost 10% say that they use news less often than once a month or never. And as someone who believes firmly in the importance of journalism, and who used to think that everyone engaged with the news… I just kept staring at that figure.”

So, he set out to learn more, asking “Who are these people? Why do they say they use so little news? And how do they navigate the world without it?”

He found that, while the impact of public disengagement with newspapers’ missions are the most obvious consequence of news avoidance, it has less immediately apparent implications for media business models. It presents challenges around propensity to pay for news, keyword blocking – and that does not begin to account for the societal impact of citizens choosing to avoid essential news and information.

His research also found a variety of causes for news avoidance among the public, whether that was selectively or constantly. Nielsen says that the majority of news avoiders do not avoid media in general. Rather, there is something specific about news content that repels them.

The psychological impact of negative news

One of the most prominent is that news content can create psychological stress among sections of the audience who are ill-equipped to deal with it. Whether that is as a result of wider social pressures in their lives or simple exhaustion from work, Nielsen says a proportion of respondents believe they have no mental availability to engage with news content:

“What they often seek from the media is something pleasant, something that can help them recharge and renew, as they face another day of often very demanding tasks that they have to take on to provide for themselves or families.”

That is exacerbated by a perception that news content is primarily negative. The adage that “if it bleeds it leads” is undeniably true – perhaps ever more so in the age of social media. However, the trade off for news publishers is that a subset of the audience will disengage from negativity entirely.

So when the news is perceived to be overly negative audiences will choose to avoid it. That feeds the perennial problem of keyword blocking among advertisers, who also seek to avoid association with that negativity – even when the coverage is entirely warranted by a need to inform the public.

Blacklisted, by readers and advertisers

Nielsen acknowledges that news avoidance is not a phenomenon that exists in a vacuum. It feeds into those other issues like keyword blocklists: “We could probably write a whole separate book about advertisers avoiding the news. But at the end of the day, publishers who are relying on advertising will have to consider the reality that much of the public and many advertisers aren’t interested in being next to pieces of journalism that they regard as being divisive and depressing and perhaps not that valuable.”

In Avoiding the News Nielsen and his co-authors acknowledge that, in the case of people’s attitude to media, “perception is reality.” But in line with their recommendations to publishers, they also suggest potential solutions to these issues, one of which is to take a more positive approach to coverage to prevent that disengagement:

Neilsen says that “there is a good case to be made that that media literacy has been very focused on helping people be critical, which is important. But there is a companion [argument] that it’s about helping people be affirmative, about making decisions about what’s good enough in a world of imperfect choices of information.”

Payments, perception, and representation

Another prominent cause of news avoidance is that the public – still – does not feel represented by the news. They do not believe it is either by or for them. Nielsen explains: “There is a very clear sense amongst many of our interviewees that news isn’t for people like them, that news is for people who are older, who identify as male, for people who are well off.”

He likens it to the way that some people say classical music or contemporary art is something that’s “perfectly fine for other people, but it’s not really for people like me.”

That, too, has implications for media business models. An increasing number of media organizations seek to build out subscription models. However, the perception of a lack of representation shrinks the total addressable audience, limiting the potential for converting significant numbers of readers to members or subscribers.

It goes back to what Nielsen describes as a discussion around “identity and ideology.” He notes that the belief that news is not representative is not universal, nor is it unique to either left- or right-leaning audiences. Instead it comes from a wider societal sense of disenfranchisement: the perception is stronger among right-leaning people in the U.S., but among left-leaning people in the U.K. Nielsen attributes this in part to the fact that the U.K .press is perceived to skew right more generally.

However, he points out that “In the U.K., in the U.S., large parts of the public are disenchanted with politics, and they see news as intertwined with politics not in an independent from it. And that sense of alienation from politics in turn informs their relationship with journalism.”

As a result the authors of Avoiding the News say that one potential solution is that the industry needs to recognize that it currently does not speak to as wide an array of people as it could: “It is within the power of journalists and editors to think about ‘what are the sources that we feature?’ ‘What are the topics that we feature?’ ‘How do we write about communities near and far?’ And ‘is it worth more proactively trying to address these very vocal and consistent and long standing concerns many parts of the public have?’”

Community engagement and games we play

Another factor in news avoidance lies in sections of the public not being part of any “news communities.” Nielsen explains that “They don’t get any social affirmation or reinforcement, the way that many white collar people with high levels of formal education move in circles where they’re constantly affirmed that engaging with the news is important and it makes us kind of a better person. It’s not only right, it’s also righteous.”

For news organizations whose audience acquisition and retention strategies rely on bringing audience members into their own news communities, that presents a problem. It is one thing to introduce someone who already interacts with other people around news content into the fold; it is another thing entirely to create that behavior in people.

Membership-based organizations like the U.K.’s “slow news” brand Tortoise rely in part on using their engaged members as ambassadors for the brand.

However, as the success of the New York Times’ cooking and games apps make clear, news content is not the only thing that draws new audience members into the fold. Adjacent products like crosswords – which make community high scores etc. part of their appeal – are ways to sidestep this issue and potentially engage those audiences at a later date.

This time, it might really be personal

News avoidance has risen in priority among media companies’ priority lists over the past few years. On February 27th in the U.K., a House of Lords committee into the impact of technology on news saw it raised as a problem that needs to be overcome, for example. While much of that concern is predicated on the impact on the efficacy of journalism, the subtext is that news avoidance is contributing to media companies’ revenue woes.

Nielsen says that while a lot of the reasons for news avoidance are societal and structural rather than as a direct result of media companies’ decisions, there are still actions editors and journalists can undertake to mitigate it:

“I know that many journalists and news organizations feel a bit uneasy about ideas of personalization. [But] if news media and journalists want to serve everybody, they probably need a more differentiated offer including packaging things for people who may want to hear some things that did not go wrong in the world yesterday before we get to things that [did].”

Ultimately many of the potential solutions presented in the book lie in doubling down on journalism’s promise: to represent the whole public, not just the most affluent members of society, and to ensure that readers and viewers feel that representation.

Nielsen says: “I also would just invite journalists and editors to read some of what citizens told us in our interviews as we feature in the book, because I think on closer inspection, some journalists and editors may admit that people have a point about some of their criticisms of journalism.”

Google, what big teeth you have 

February 29, 2024 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

Google has issues. Lots of them. Unfortunately for our industry, Google’s issues are our issues too.

Last week, I observed a strange turn of events when an eye-opening HouseFresh blog post titled, “How Google is killing independent sites like ours” quickly evolved into a bizarre critique on the quality of work by and trust for premium publishers. While that may be a subject of debate, one thing we know for sure is that Google’s search experience often puts profits ahead of surfacing quality information—from small sites, independents, or anyone else that isn’t delivering dollars to its bottom line.

Mind you, this conversation was happening in the very same week in which Google’s outsized role in shaping public perception was on display as their newest product was found to be generating racially diverse Nazis. (Yes, you read that right). Was Google trying to rewrite history? Or just further demonstrating that its product and profit priorities can quickly get dangerously ahead of its historically unique and dominant role in determining how information and value gets distributed to the world.

Anti-trust me

Meanwhile, a little-known collective comprised of the United States Department of Justice and nearly every state attorney general was filing its closing briefing for its antitrust trial against – you guessed it – Google. Suffice it to say that this monumental case didn’t get nearly the column inches it deserved despite damning evidence. There’s something almost poignant about an industry undermined by Google for decades lacking the resources, or public interest, to cover a case that rivals other once-in-a-century trials on par with standard oil (likely surpassing AT&T and Microsoft) in its impact on the free market and competition.

For those new to these details, I would summarize the United States case against Google in three floors of an elevator pitch:

Google has monopoly power in general search services and the advertising that comes with it.

Google has systematically captured more than half of this market by paying roughly $30 billion per year for exclusivity on devices (Apple and Samsung) and browsers (e.g. Firefox and Safari). I left out the most popular operating system and browser, Android and Chrome, as Google gets them for free because it owns them.

The result of this monopoly power is 95% market share on mobile and orders of magnitude advantage in data (aka “signals”) allowing Google to maintain its market dominance through superior data for ranking, local queries, and new queries, along with the all-important ads. And finally substantial advantages in emerging markets like artificial intelligence.

A case of convoluted logic

What does Google say about this in its own defense? Well, each of their claims sound weak to those of us who have been around the block a few times in the digital media world. I’ll lay them out here with my own redirect:

Google spends its first 15 pages arguing it competes in search with Amazon, TikTok, Facebook, Yelp and the list goes on. Have you ever searched Amazon for a local restaurant? Have you ever searched Facebook for a new television? Have you ever searched Yelp for a BBC report? This attempt to throw out the entire definition of general search is a waste of ink. (But, hey: maybe they used Gemini to formulate it.)

The next chapter from Google is an argument that, even if they accept the market of “general search,” they still don’t have monopoly power in it. To the contrary, a good deal of internal evidence demonstrates Google’s ability to raise prices, lower privacy and weaken consumer experience without missing a beat. An experience utterly degraded, particularly on mobile where it is clearly pay to play and self-preferencing of Google’s own products.

Finally, Google would like you to believe that all its deals with devices and browsers are not ‘exclusive’ as they merely make Google the default search engine. This may be left to the Court on semantics. But again there are, in evidence, internal decks from Google regarding the power of defaults that explain their significance to maintaining market share along with a damning letter sent to Microsoft claiming it would “deprive consumers of a competitive choice in search” by making Microsoft the default search. That litigation threat was sent by – surprise – Google.

Google is not your friend

I now return to my central point: Google puts the enemy in frenemy. No doubt they are the most significant business partner for nearly every publisher on the planet. They often send the largest monthly revenue checks from their near ubiquitous role in distribution and monetization of the web.

But as it relates to how they shape its design, the tools we use, the incentives it proffers, and how the welfare gets divided, they are certainly not the friend of media. Nor are they a friend to consumers who seek out quality information and would benefit from an open competitive marketplace.

Next up, we’ll see the UK Competition and Markets authority flex as it has closely examined Google’s plan for third-party cookie deprecation. The CMA insightfully notes that maybe the solution isn’t further delaying Google’s cookie deprecation – consumers don’t want to be tracked and surveilled – but instead putting limitations on Google’s abuses. A M E N.

Stateside, Google next faces the US Department of Justice in an adtech lawsuit set to go to trial on September 9^th, 2024. The exhibits, depositions and evidence in this case will shine a light on every aspect of how our modern media economy is designed, distributed and dominated by a company that just surpassed $300 billion in revenues. To give that number some relative scale: Google earns the annual revenue of the largest news organizations (be it CNN, The New York Times, FOX News) in the world in just three days.

Google’s money-making results

Of course, none of this is to suggest that media endeavors aren’t in the business of making money, if only to support the work of journalists as in the case of non-profit models. Yet again, this week, we learn that Google is reportedly paying “smaller publishers” to use its AI tools. As with other Google News Initiative projects, this one is cloaked in the veneer of helpful benefactor here to support the creation of news.

Putting the relatively small sums involved aside, publishers are wise to remember that Google is not a friend. There is little doubt that this scheme is intended to benefit Google far more than any of the publishers involved. We may not see it yet, but if the evidence coming to light in the current spate of antitrust trials suggests anything, it is that we can look forward to the revelation of internal documents demonstrating the self (ish) motivation driving this organization.

Even as we explore the discussion around HouseFresh’s revelations about the questionable quality around the search results for product reviews we can’t forget that the root cause is Google’s profit-first approach. The engine that drives our traffic was really only built to drive revenue for one company. Results that favor commerce favor Google.

So, as the media allocates resources for courtroom coverage, let’s not forget how high the stakes are here. This goes far beyond the health of the media industry, or the chilling effects of monopolistic power on innovation. Ultimately, it is the marketplace of ideas, the value exchange of information, and the ability to surface essential news and entertainment that suffer in a system so profoundly gamed by one player.

Building a strategic AI innovation plan for your media business

February 22, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

As the technology continues to develop at breakneck speed, publishers are taking every imaginable stance on AI. From The Telegraph forbidding staff from using AI-generated text in its journalism, to Politico actively optimizing its website for generative AI crawlers, a wait-and-see approach is not an option.

There are still many unknowns around both the use of generative AI technology and the potential legal and ethical implications. So, it is understandable that many media executives are hesitant to take a stance. But in all likelihood, you’ve got staff using it already; one survey found that 70% of workers did not disclose their ChatGPT usage to their boss.

So how can senior leaders work to introduce AI in a way that benefits the organization, or at least empower the experts and evangelists to explore and share solutions? Here, we look at publishers who have created frameworks for experimenting in ways which benefit the businesses, as well as some tips from an innovation expert to help shape your own AI strategies.

“Waddle Inn” at William Reed

William Reed is a data and events publisher focused on the food and drinks sector. They have found success with their “Waddle Inn” project, named lightheartedly after the way ducks and penguins waddle together, with the extra ‘n’ to make it sound “more like a pub,” explained Chief Digital Officer John Barnes.

William Reed has three locations in the UK, as well as offices in France, Chicago and Singapore, not to mention staff working remotely. So they decided that an online forum would be the best way to bring everyone together. They set up a Microsoft Teams group composed not just of techies and experts, but also those who are new to AI, intrigued, or even frightened by it.

“Whatever your starting position is, here’s a group where you can come together.” Barnes explained. “We use it to share articles, pose questions to each other, we use it to discuss and come up with ideas. It helped form our AI statement… What’s come out of it is a whole series of ideas, some of which we’re working on, some of which we’re still debating, and some of which we’ve just put a spike through because it was too crazy to even contemplate!”

A year on, the Teams group has now become a “record” of William Reed’s AI journey. Barnes noted that some of the ideas they discussed when it first started now seem “less crazy” given the speed at which the AI landscape is developing. “It’s such a useful social resource that seems to be well-liked and well-attended,” he said. “It’s very, very active.”

Immediate Media’s AI experimentation days

Magazine and special interest consumer publisher Immediate Media have found that offering staff events focused on AI has driven experimentation and innovation. They started off with an AI Immersion Day in the summer, which Roxanne Fisher, Immediate’s Director of Digital Content Strategy said was about setting a level playing field of understanding.

“We had a morning of keynote speakers come in and talk about things like the ethical implications and the opportunities, and we also had our CEO stand up and say, ‘This is what we’re doing with AI, and this is what we believe we shouldn’t do,’” she explained. “Then in the afternoon we had really hands-on workshops about prompting, ChatGPT, basic frameworks, Midjourney and how to decide what the right tool is for your use-case.”

But they didn’t just leave it at that. To encourage practical outcomes, Immediate then set up an AI Experimentation Days where they asked staff to submit projects that they might want to use AI for. From over 70 submissions, they took forward 27 projects to work on a hackathon-style event.

“The experimentation days were really useful because people were getting to work on something they had submitted, and were quite excited about,” Fisher said. “But also we had expert facilitators going around the business for the two days. So, if you got stuck…we had people to give really good prompting tips.”

The days were seen as a success by staff as well. Fisher noted that having no expectations around experimentation or productivity gains really helped take the pressure off. Although they’re planning more days in the future, she acknowledged that they’re now working on ways to build the outcomes into the business more strategically. “The experimentation is going really well, but building that into a process or ways to use these tools on a regular basis that’s really meaningful is more difficult,” Fisher said.

Have a clear company-wide generative AI statement

Plenty of publishers have put out statements and policy guidelines to clarify their approach to AI tools over the past year or so. This shouldn’t be seen as a frivolous exercise or a PR move; both Barnes and Fisher noted that publishing clear, public guidelines have really helped reassure staff, as well as provide a framework for internal experimentation.

“If I hear somebody in our company saying, ‘I’m really worried about AI, I’m going to lose my job,’ I don’t see that as a problem. It’s something I need to try and address so that they, for their own well-being, aren’t feeling frightened and worried,” William Reed’s John Barnes said. “We’re not going to be doing certain things, hence having a statement that’s transparent and published that everyone can see.”

Immediate has also put together their own manifesto for how they will use AI, and have communicated that to staff. “The first thing we wanted to do is be really clear in the business what our stance was for using it; what we would and wouldn’t do,” Fisher explained. “We really want to stay up to date and understand it, and understand how it’s going to change everything, but we also want to really maintain the trust of the brands.”

For Fisher, it was important to put guardrails and rules in place for experimentation. This includes basics like not putting personal or sensitive data into tools, but also ensuring staff feel secure. “We did a lot of psychological safety work around it, and tried to make sure people felt they could have the conversations and be really honest about how they’re feeling about it,” she said. “But also lots of reassurance and having that clear stance of what we did and didn’t do was helpful. It set out to people that we’re not about to churn out hundreds of news articles or anything. That’s not what we’re about.”

Lead AI innovation from the top

The success of AI initiatives like these are heavily predicated on support from senior executives. Fisher found that, at Immediate, early encouragement to try and use the technology didn’t take off until more structure was provided. “We realized that the testing and usage needed to come from [the leadership team] more,” she explained. “So we were more prescriptive with people about what we thought they should test.”

Immediate now has an “AI champions board” of people from different disciplines around the business who are passionate about, or interested in the technology. This helps galvanize others. It also means that there are recognized representatives staff can go to with ideas or concerns.

Barnes explained that he sees three types of people who experiment with new technologies in a business: the over enthusiastic early adopters, the pragmatists, and those who are afraid they’ll lose their job to it. “You want to rein in the early adopters who are going to waste lots of time, and you want to make sure that the people that are being pragmatic about what it could or couldn’t do aren’t seen as being the party poopers,” he outlined.

But AI policies and strategies aren’t something that can simply be delegated out to someone else. Media consultant Ian Betteridge, who has worked in leadership positions at publishers like Bauer and Dennis, says that it needs to come right from the CEO. “Firstly, you need to understand this new technology,” he said. “You need to understand how it impacts your ways of working. Because quite often, when it gets to a certain level, everyone just assumes that everybody else knows, or everybody else can just find it all out themselves.”

This means going through several change management processes. “You’ve got to run, as the CEO, a change management process with your executive team,” explained Betteridge. “They then have to run the change management process with the senior leadership team…and they then have to run it with the broader business.”

While that’s going on, media leaders have to “stop people just going off and doing it themselves.” “You’ve got to put guidelines in place from the off,” Betteridge advised.

That doesn’t mean media leaders need to understand the technical detail, or every use case. “But we need to understand it to a point to be able to say to people, that’s not possible, or how to help them unlock things,” Immediate’s Fisher emphasized. “One of the biggest things that people in leadership can do is actually just get hands on with it… therefore you can make sure what you’re asking people in the company to do is realistic and reasonable.”

“Somebody on the leadership team that is looking after digital in some way, shape or form needs to own [it],” Barnes echoed, noting that it can’t simply be delegated to the IT team. “And if they’re not able to lead it on their own, they need to put a group of people around them from their teams or from around the company that can own it.”

Get your AI experimentation going

Some publishers will have teams and individuals eager and ready to experiment with AI. But for those at organizations with leadership teams who are more cautious about the technology, there are still ways to get things moving.

For organizations without strategies in place or a willingness to experiment, “the best way is to always just be able to share results. That’s the thing anybody sitting at the top is going to care about,” Betteridge advised. “So if you can share results and say, we’re now getting five exclusives and more traffic through there, then that matters.”

Barnes suggested simply talking about it as a way to get things started, even if full understanding isn’t there yet. “You want to make sure you’re working within the law, you’re doing something that isn’t going to damage your brand, you’re using tools in the right way to be efficient but not at the expense of humans,” he said, noting that these are points most leaders can agree on.

Whether organizations choose to appoint a board, hire or earmark individual champions, or bring everyone into the conversation, AI is not an issue media leaders can afford to stay silent on. It is a given that there are people within nearly every media organization using generative AI tools in some way. While you might not hesitate for staff to use Grammarly, you’ll likely feel quite differently about using ChatGPT for research or writing. Therefore, it is not only critical that you get started, the impetus and innovation need to start at the top with clear leadership driving smart experimentation.

Advertising | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post | Innovation | Policy

Amid AI, ads and antitrust, press power holds the spotlight at DCN Summit

February 15, 2024 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

At the 2024 DCN Next:Summit, held February 7th – 9th in Charleston, SC, senior executives from DCN’s member companies discussed the biggest issues and opportunities impacting the future of media. It was fitting that CEO Jason Kint opened the event by reflecting on the human agency, energy and collaboration that drive the industry forward.

“Let’s face it, algorithms can’t write a Pulitzer Prize winning exposé. They can’t tap out a heart-wrenching screenplay or build a company culture that thrives on innovation, inclusion and empathy,” he said. “We all understand that algorithms crunch data. Tech is very much part of our future. But it’s the human creativity spark that ignites us all.”

As the industry navigates the ever-changing media landscape–which continues to be shaped by technology–Kint reminded attendees that it’s not machines, but humans, who will write the next chapter of our collective story. While he pointed out that media organizations must be positioned to best-leverage and benefit from emerging technologies, Kint emphasized the critical role of those gathered at the Summit, particularly as they guide the teams they lead.

The impact of generative AI

Unsurprisingly, a broad theme of the event was the many ways publishers are approaching, using, experimenting with and challenged by generative AI. On that note, Todd Krizelman, CEO and co-founder of advertising intelligence platform MediaRadar, said his company approaches AI from two directions: the business and editorial sides of media. For him, AI is the most exciting part of his business, and the media business, right now. “Many companies will be testing the kind of stuff we are, but I do think it is a genuine opportunity,” he said.

Rafael Urbina-Quintero, the chief operating officer of ViX at TelevisaUnivision Inc. told Axios media reporter Sara Fischer that his company is starting to experiment with short form content using AI to do translation. “We have certain properties that travel really well.”

Kedar Prabhu, vice president of ad product and technology at Dow Jones, explained that Dow Jones uses AI for audience lookalike models and contextual targeting in ad tech. The company is also looking at use cases for AI including translation, voice transcription, personalization and video production.

POLITICO is focused on using AI to improve its subscriber experience. Goli Sheikholeslami, CEO of POLITICO Media Group explained that, while POLITICO has tens of thousands of legislative bills on their platform, only about 40% of them had summaries. However, “over the last three months, we’ve now taken all of our bills and through AI, now provide summaries for every single bill that’s on the platform,” Sheikholeslami said. POLITICO is also looking into how to use AI tools to help journalists do their jobs better and improve workflows that allow them to do more value-added work.

Andrea Brimmer, chief marketing and public relations officer at Ally Financial said that they are not only testing the Ally.ai platform, a large language model for campaign development, they’re also using AI to keep up with consumers’ “insatiable” demand for content on their Conversationally blog.

However, as many echoed throughout the event, AI is a powerful tool, best employed wisely by people. “We’ve used AI to make our writers more proficient to accelerate the amount of content that we’re able to put out into the atmosphere,” Brimmer said. “But, the difference at Ally is everything’s got to have a human touch. So, everything that we do has a human in the center of the transaction.”

In general, both speakers and attendees made it clear that despite AI’s huge potential value and use cases, they have concerns. “There’s a gap between tech capability and business value that is yet to be crossed, in particular when it comes to generative AI. I expect that, given what we’ve seen, we will eventually cross that gap, but we’re not there yet,” Prabhu said.

AI can be a powerful tool for making decisions, predictions or completing tasks. However, it is critical to keep in mind that it is not immune to problems like racism, sexism, ableism, explained author of More Than a Glitch, Meredith Broussard, who is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.

Problematic platform partnerships

From Apple, to Samsung, Facebook, Google or Amazon, publishers and brands seek partnerships with platforms because it helps drive revenue, build audience and market share. However, these days everyone is approaching platform partnerships with caution.

The Weather Company is very selective in the partners that they’ll partner with, explained CEO Sheri Bachstein. She added that they have partnered with Apple, Samsung, Facebook and Google, which helps extend their brand. Platforms add value, drive revenue and add the ability to create more segmentation, Bachstein said. “So, you make a decision strategically, ‘I’m going to partner with this person versus for this data’ to drive your business.”

Brimmer explained that Ally Financial has been somewhat tepid on platforms. “We use platforms episodically. Until we feel comfortable that all brand safety measures are in place, there are platforms that we will just stay away from,” she said.

Indeed, as Paramount COO Steve Ellis put it, in many ways “it is not an even playing field when we talk about platforms because we have to abide by a whole different set of standards as a premium company.”

Marketing and advertising to culture

While coping with cookie depreciation was a recurring theme, the subject of equitable and diverse advertising was also a topic of much discussion. As Axios’ Sara Fischer pointed out, the media industry still lacks systems and processes to support marketing and advertising to culture.

TelevisaUnivision COO Rafael Urbina-Quintero, whose over-the-top streaming service ViX targets the 600 million Spanish-speaking market, agreed. It’s a huge opportunity for the company, which has a large share of the broadcast market in Mexico and about 60% of the Spanish-speaking market in the US.

Urbina-Quintero explained that the company has developed an entire creative services unit to help advertisers create pieces that allow them to effectively market to these audiences. “It’s a massive opportunity where you’re talking about over a trillion dollars in purchasing power, and one of the fastest growing parts of the population.”

Ally Financial’s Brimmer said that, over the past several years, the company has been focused on ensuring that women’s sports get a fair deal. While women’s sports have grown in popularity, they still received a fraction of the marketing investment and sports media coverage. With this in mind, in May 2022 the company committed to spend equally on men’s and women’s sports within five years, and is poised to reach its 50-50 goal ahead of schedule–by the end of this year.

Becoming a champion of women’s sports has been more than a feel-good project for Ally, according to Brimmer. She pointed out that it takes a lot of effort, funding and differentiation to break through in sports. So, leaning into women’s sports gave Ally Financial the opportunity for disruption.

She said that the company could see that “the moment for women’s sports was really coming [and asked] ‘how can we naturally and authentically integrate into that to be one of the brands that can punch above our weight, especially in this highly complex media ecosystem?” The decision has paid off. Brimmer says that the company “finished last year with the highest level of all of our KPIs in the history of our company, highest level of awareness ever in the history of our company, highest level of positive brand sentiment ever in the history of our company…the earned media impressions alone have been staggering.”

As Paramount COO Ellis described, there’s an opportunity being missed in which marketers can align their messaging and actions with underrepresented communities. “It speaks to how entrenched processes and systems are,” he said. “We have to change processes to change the outcomes and I don’t think we’ve done nearly enough as an industry to change how we market to culture.”

Antitrust action

Platforms are coming under heavy scrutiny in 2024. Just last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an inquiry into big tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Microsoft Corp, and their investments in AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.

The inquiry will examine the relationship between some of these big tech companies and newer AI firms that they’ve been investing in, explained FTC Chair Lina Khan in a live-streamed interview with Axios’ Fischer. Khan says the agency is asking “Are there certain expectations of exclusivity? Are there certain rights to board seats, or other mechanisms influencing business strategy or direction of innovation?”

Historically, at technological inflection points, you have potential paradigm shifts in the technologies that are available can be enormously important for opening up markets and injecting competition and disrupting existing incumbents, Khan said. “We just want to make sure that these relationships and partnerships are not being misused to undermine competition.”

In a session recorded for The Verge editor Nilay Patel’s podcast “Decoder,” Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the department of justice, set the stakes even higher. “News and journalism is the raw material of our democracy and the marketplace of ideas is vital to a thriving… democratic free society.” Therefore, his work examines whether monopolies have arisen, or are poised to, which threaten the health and survival of the news media.

As Kanter described it, “if monopolization and harm to competition is harming journalism, it means that companies can’t invest in original journalism in the kind of reporting and infrastructure that is necessary, not just on a national level but on a local level, to keep our country free of corruption, to make sure that our political discourse is well-informed, to make sure that people can learn about exciting new things, to make sure that we can vote in an informed way. It’s hard to imagine something that’s more important, more critical to the fabric of our nation.”

Press freedom, democracy and the human cost of doing journalism

Throughout the program, storytellers from around the world discussed the human cost of journalism, and the need to unify as an industry to protect journalists and the right and responsibility of the media to speak truth to power.

Paul Beckett, assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal, detailed the work he and a wide team from the WSJ and others are doing to release his reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being detained in Russia. He emphasized that it is up to the entire industry to protect journalists from forces that would stifle the free press. “It has ripple effects and, at its broadest, it is an attack on one of the great freedoms,” Beckett said.

Rappler CEO and 2021 Nobel laureate Maria Ressa discussed her ongoing efforts to hold the line on press freedom with Pivot podcast co-host Kara Swisher. She also explored her 10 point plan to support journalism. “In 2021, I compared what tech did to an atom bomb exploding in our information ecosystem… because it’s changing the cellular level of democracy. It’s only gotten worse since 2021,” Ressa said.

In 2024, at least 64 countries (including the European Union) will hold national elections. That’s almost 50% of the world’s population. “Since we don’t have integrity of facts, how are we going to have integrity of elections?” Ressa pointed out.

She called for publishers to stop competing with each other when it comes to larger issues of misinformation, disinformation, and the impact of dominant platforms on the media industry and society as a whole. While she recognizes that news organizations vie for audiences, Ressa believes there are areas where collaboration is critical. “I know that we cannot continue competing against each other because we’re on the same side of facts,” said Ressa. “We’re on the same side of a shared reality, right? Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.”

Amid the attacks on the press by those in power, it’s important that the press behave as professionals, not combatants, former Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron explained to the audience. “I think one of the critical things for us is to actually persuade the public that we’re giving them information… that we’re not just participating in ideological or partisan warfare,” Baron said.

People shape the future

As digital media progresses with artificial intelligence, navigates platform partnerships, protects democracy, and markets to new cultural opportunities into 2024, it’s clear that the future of the industry lies in its people. As DCN CEO Jason Kint remarked, “it’s in the hearts and minds of extraordinary individuals who make up our membership, it’s the humans who uncover the truths, who amplify silenced voices and who hold the powerful accountable.”

How to get editorial and revenue to collaborate for the win

February 1, 2024 Richard E. Brown, Media Revenue Consultant

Throughout my career, I’ve had this immense privilege and opportunity to consult for and collaborate with numerous news media organizations. Among the most recent and rewarding aspects of my work has been the opportunity to coach, a role that has allowed me to contribute to various initiatives and granted me profound insights into the essence of news media.

Coaching and consulting with burgeoning media leaders have opened my eyes to the intricate dance between revenue strategies and editorial excellence. Unfortunately, it is often awkward. But it doesn’t need to be. In fact, from what I’ve seen in successful media organizations, both sides showcase their individual skills when they perform in a smooth and elegantly choreographed routine that they perform together.

Through my work as a coach, and the conversations I have had with brilliant leaders on both sides of the business, I have identified four distinct insights that may help steer future conversations around how content and revenue leaders collaborate and strategize on sustainable revenue growth. These insights illuminate areas where our traditional practices and a legacy perspective might still create a barrier to progressive momentum.

Though I admit that it’s not as widespread a problem as it once was, the relationship between revenue and editorial can have contentious undertones. The good news is that collaboration has become more commonplace, particularly when all parties embrace and acknowledge our industry’s challenges, share a common organizational mission, and understand each other’s perspective.

Tighten your internal ties

Before delving in, I want to emphasize my understanding of, and respect for, the delicate balance between journalistic integrity, advertising, and revenue. I’ve built a career steeped in strong newsroom relationships, bridging the gap between editorial and advertising without encountering stark divides. However, I’ve always noticed a subtle barrier that, with experience and perspective, may unlock significant revenue opportunities. Rather than erode boundaries, I propose fostering stronger internal relationships.

For example, forming a revenue and content growth task force can lead to healthy collaboration on new formats, series, or projects involving editorial, advertising, and marketing teams. This approach provides editorial leaders with a comprehensive perspective on contemporary revenue development strategies and imparts a strong understanding of journalism practices for revenue personnel.

Cross-departmental collaboration promotes a shared purpose and mutual respect. Sales personnel gain pride in achieving revenue goals, all while learning to better appreciate editorial’s role and objectives. All leaders begin to understand the teamwork required for resource acquisition. Collaboration fosters empathy and understanding and promotes the overarching goal of effectively serving the community. When the entire team brings their skills to bear on revenue ideas, everyone wins.

An opportunity for creative business solutions

Balancing content and revenue generation poses challenges for leaders across various domains, particularly impacting news media startups that have largely been shaped by editorial approaches. While logic, fact-finding, research, and creativity are shared between revenue and editorial leaders, transitioning from an editorial to a revenue focus requires a significant mental adjustment. The unwavering dedication of editorial leaders to top-notch journalism often clashes with the different mindsets essential for effective revenue generation. Even when editors are committed to revenue development, navigating the intricacies of revenue may feel less natural.

In my coaching experience with smaller news organizations, the critical need to balance between revenue and content discussions became starkly apparent. However, it’s important to note that, especially at the start, not all news organizations have personnel dedicated to revenue development.

If the business side of the organization has not been fully developed at startup, consider contracting or hiring revenue or sales development support. Interestingly, supporting the development of the business side in this way can provide a constructive framework for collaboration. You can emphasize the importance of bridging the gap between editorial and revenue development. Rather than focus on the creation of traditional silos, teams can be built that work together on a common goal from the outset. This adaptability is increasingly vital to speak with a unified voice and navigate industry challenges seamlessly, accommodating both editorial and revenue progression.

Unpack the guilt and cynicism around revenue

Discussing the intersection of journalism and revenue unearthed a range of emotions among the editorial leaders I coached. What really stood out was editorial feeling some guilt around revenue, or sense of revenue representing a necessary evil.

To combat these feelings, emphasize the role of revenue in sustaining a media organization’s mission and the value of fostering community partnerships. It helps to acknowledge the historical context (cases in which the line between quality content and the demands of advertisers were blurred), but it is ok to reject this as a blanket concept.

Encourage editorial leaders to recognize sponsors and readers as integral to the community and the organization, deserving of respect and appreciation. The authenticity of relationships with sponsors and subscribers is crucial. If this connection is inauthentic or superficial, it may compromise trust and hinder revenue, growth, brand awareness, and stunt progress.

Revenue is… donations, subscribers, advertisers and more

I’ve observed a growing interest in donation-based reader revenue models, within non-profits and some for-profit organizations. However, there are potential limitations in these models’ longevity, growth, and expansion. While I recognize the strategic value of reader-support, particularly for non-profits, the term “one-time donation” inherently implies a finite nature. This can suggest hesitancy or lack of confidence in the long-term sustainability of the mission.

In fact, recurring or regular donation cycles are critical to support the ongoing health of a media endeavor. For these appeals, it is essential to reiterate and communicate the news organization’s benefits and impact and emphasize its significance for the audience within the community.

Encourage and invite audience support, not just for sustainable journalism as an abstraction, but as an investment in the local news organization in order to benefit the entire community. This shift relies on building the belief in reciprocity, where the news organization consistently communicates its impact, showcasing changed lives and areas for improvement. Aligning values, mission, and community outlook facilitates a more feasible and strategic transition to ongoing support, over one-time donations.

Explore sponsored content versus traditional display

In almost every organization I’ve had the privilege of coaching or consulting with, the initial conversation often concerns the need to understand better or develop media kits and rate cards. What remained consistent, particularly in working with editorial leaders, was a belief that the rate card and media kit were essential for revenue generation. This is true – to an extent.

However, it was intriguing that a majority of editorial leaders either held a slight contempt or outright rejected many traditional display advertising norms associated with standard news websites. I understood concerns about balancing reader experience and advertising. However, the challenge wasn’t developing tools; it was a lack of confidence in securing enough sponsorship opportunities compared to competitors due to reluctance toward traditional display advertising.

In some cases, where organizations already had a media kit or rate card, I observed that much of the information focused solely on the publication itself. While this approach is common and traditional, a more nuanced strategy is more effective in communicating how a media organization can collaborate with advertisers for success. Yes, it is important to describe the mission of a publication, its demographics, and importance to the community. But what will stand out to advertisers is that the entire organization is comfortable with, and will collaborate on, branded or sponsored content campaigns.

This approach highlights editorial leaders’ skill in identifying and seizing opportunities, especially concerning the balance between engaging readers and attracting revenue. Sponsored or branded content opportunities illuminate a path forward in which editorial works with sponsors that align with the news organization’s mission and can serve as valuable resources for the audience. Leveraging content for sponsored opportunities can be positioned as offering a guiding resource for the audience. And anything that truly serves the audience is key to resilience, retention, and sustainable revenue growth— which often differs from traditional display advertising.

Build sustainable media revenue through collaboration

While revenue and editorial teams have distinct focuses, collaboration can unlock new opportunities and positive change. Recognize the challenges and thought processes of these differing roles while also focusing on their shared narrative and objectives.

News leaders contribute to a greater mission within our communities. But we face significant hurdles in building revenue solutions that will sustain these valuable resources. As I work with news startups, as well as established media organizations, it is clear that there are sparks ready to ignite. And it is good to know that I’m not alone in this journey, ready and excited for what lies ahead.

About the author

Richard E. Brown is a recipient of the News Media Alliance Rising Star award. He previously served as the director of renewals and digital sales strategy at LPi and held the position of director of digital operations and sales at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Recently, he was the head of digital subscriber churn for Gannett | USA Today Network and is currently the senior director of retention for The Daily Beast. Additionally, Brown is a member of the board of directors for the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation, a monthly columnist for Editor & Publisher magazine, a contributing writer for Digital Content Next, a revenue sustainability coach for Local Independent Online News (LION Publishing), and the owner of RE Media Holdings, LLC.

Apple flouts ruling to flex its monopoly power

January 25, 2024 Chris Pedigo, SVP Government Affairs – DCN

Big tech monopolies face a regulatory reckoning right now. One area of intense scrutiny is the ability of these companies to exert their market dominance in ways that extract sky-high profits while limiting the ability of other companies to sufficiently monetize their offerings. The four-year legal battle between Epic Games and Apple vividly illustrates these issues. Of course, Epic is far from alone in believing that Apple’s stronghold on the app marketplace is what allows it to extract a 30% cut from every in-app purchase.

Earlier this month, a federal court ruling officially asserted that Apple had violated California competition law by limiting the ability for app developers to point consumers to alternative payment systems that offer lower prices and fees. But almost immediately, Apple announced a brazen new approach to extend the charging of exorbitant fees on purchases even when those purchases are made outside of Apple’s walled garden – in direct contradiction with the spirit of the court’s ruling.

Once a company known for breathtaking, innovative technological advancements, this is now a company laser-focused on maintaining its stronghold on the app market. While we might see little else to applaud from Apple, we have to marvel at the breathtaking chutzpah of its legal team. At the same time, the ability of one company to manipulate the market – and the legal system – so openly demonstrates the need for a stronger legal framework.

Epic battle

Epic’s battle against Apple (and Google) has come to epitomize app developers’ struggle to sustain their businesses given that the distribution marketplace is so heavily weighted in the favor of big tech. Since 2015, Epic Games’ founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has questioned the need for digital storefronts to take a 30% revenue share cut. He reasoned that this not only unduly affected the ability of developers to monetize their offerings, but that it drove price increases that ultimately impacted consumers.

In 2020, when Epic first filed suit against Apple, Sweeny pointed out that “Apple has locked down and crippled the ecosystem by inventing an absolute monopoly on the distribution of software, on the monetization of software.”

In 2021, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favor of Epic that Apple’s policies prevented consumers from getting cheaper prices and, thus, violated the California Unfair Competition Law. Then, in 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. When the Supreme Court recently refused to take the case, the ruling became final.

Monopolists gonna monopolize

This legal ruling seems to have done little to dissuade Apple from its monopolistic practices, however.

Last week, Apple announced they would charge a 27% fee on all charges outside of their payment system and 12% on all recurring charges. That’s a 3% reduction from the fee they take on charges within their payment system. Given that third-party payment systems typically charge 3% to 6%, Apple is ensuring that developers will never be able to offer consumers a viable, cheaper option outside of Apple’s walled garden. Perhaps even more appalling is that Apple’s proposal amounts a massive land grab where they could start collecting nearly a third of all consumer web transactions.

Building a stronger legal framework

It’s important to note that Judge Gonzalez Rogers and the Ninth Circuit called out the shortcomings with current federal competition law when they ruled against Epic’s claims that Apple had violated federal law. In their 2023 ruling, the Ninth Circuit said, “There is a lively and important debate about the role played in our economy and democracy by online transaction platforms with market power. Our job as a federal court of appeals, however, is not to resolve that debate — nor could we even attempt to do so. Instead, in this decision, we faithfully applied existing precedent to the facts.”

The Ninth Circuit ruling clearly underscores the need for new federal law to ensure a level playing field for existing and new market players. The Open App Markets Act, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, and the AMERICA Act are vital to updating competition law in the US so that true competition can flourish and consumers can benefit from lower prices and continued innovation.

As if there weren’t enough headlines about big tech companies thumbing their noses at anyone who would suggest they need to be held accountable, Apple’s latest move should remind and inspire Congress to finally enact new, stronger guidelines to curb the pattern of abuse by big tech platforms.

4 media revenue strategies for 2024 (that don’t involve AI)

January 18, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

2023 was yet another rocky year for publishers. From the ad market slowdown to economic pressures affecting everything from hiring to subscriptions, there was plenty to write about for Media Voices’ annual report, Media Moments 2023.

AI was, of course, the headline trend. It has the potential to impact almost every aspect of the media business, and many commentators have speculated on how it can and will shape the coming years. There’s not a media executive out there who isn’t actively watching AI, if not experimenting with it. But AI isn’t the only trend influencing day-to-day publishing operations. Here are four more surprising things some of the industry’s most successful media brands are doing, all of which are covered in more detail in the Media Moments report.

Consolidating newsletters

Wait, aren’t newsletters the current big thing? Aren’t we supposed to be launching lots to make up for the impending death of social media and search traffic? Not necessarily, as some publishers have demonstrated. As with so many things, it turns out that less may deliver more.

The New Statesman is one such publisher. They consolidated their portfolio of economics, culture, politics and world news newsletters into just two: a daily and a weekend edition. “Instead of having a whole buffet of different newsletters and cutting the brilliance up into little segments, we just decided to give [the audience] one that we thought they’d like on Saturday and have the power of a big audience through one newsletter,” head of newsletters Harry Lambert told Press Gazette.

News publisher The Telegraph has a whopping 34 newsletters. However, head of newsletters Marie Bonheim told Peter H o uston that their portfolio is under constant review. Despite the urge to “fill every niche” there is a danger of spreading your newsletter efforts too thin. “You also don’t want to double up on the same content,” she explained. “We merged a few fashion and beauty newsletters into a single, daily lifestyle newsletter.”

Undoubtedly, streamlining does more than reduce the amount of products that need to be produced, it may also serve to improve reader numbers for the remaining products, which can in turn drive revenue.

(Re)launching print magazines

Mass market magazines have continued to battle decline, with just two news and current affairs magazines in the UK posting circulation growth; satirical fortnightly Private Eye and political monthly Prospect. But for more niche titles, publishers are seeing an opportunity in low volume, high value print runs.

We saw multiple stories of print revivals and launches in 2023, from fashion title Elle Australia and music magazine NME. A piece in the Sydney Morning Herald showed that readership of popular titles like Vogue Australia and Marie Claire had increased between 2022 and 2023. Jane Huxley from Are Media, which publishes Elle, said that there were two main factors behind the renewed interest in print; the enduring brand strength of these magazines in tough economic times, and a consumer reaction to the “digital deluge.”

Advertiser interest in print appears to be on the rise too. Recent research suggests a strong preference for print advertising among consumers, with readers far more likely to pay attention and trust it in contrast to online advertising.

But the approach of newly launched or relaunched magazines will be different. Copies are more expensive and printed less frequently. The new NME will be £10 every other month, and not available on newsstands. “Rather than print thousands upon thousands of copies and try to shift them at the newsstand in bulk, we’ve changed that model up and have taken inspiration from industries like fashion, where you see the value in scarcity,” Holly Bishop, of NME Networks told New Statesman.

Print isn’t going to be right for every media company. But it can be effective as a higher-priced premium product; something special to deepen relationships with super fans.

Paywalling podcasts

As the frenzy for podcast launches finally dies down, publishers are looking long and hard at the most effective ways of monetizing them. For The Economist, that involved taking the bold decision to put a paywall in front of its entire portfolio bar one (the daily flagship podcast The Intelligence will remain free). The rest of their 18+ shows will be available as part of a full Economist subscription, or as a standalone Economist Podcasts+ offering for $4.90 a month.

Claire Overstall, SVP, Global Head of Customer at The Economist told DCN in October that they had moved the podcasts to a paid offering in keeping with their belief that subscriptions should be the way they fund their journalism.

“Paying for journalism was one of the things that we led with very early; The Economist has been doing that a lot longer than many of our peers,” she said, acknowledging that although paid podcasts aren’t commonplace, the reasoning is understood. “So that’s well-embedded in people’s minds, the way that we’ve articulated how this is supporting our journalism.”

It’s a risky move for a publisher with millions of listens across its podcast portfolio. But as tools to make the subscription process for podcasts smoother and more aligned with publisher sites improve, it’s likely we’ll see more premium brands give paywalled podcasts a shot.

Paying for podcasts may take listeners time to get used to, so companies trying this shouldn’t expect instant results. But paying for good content is increasingly normalized and (grudgingly) understood by audiences. So, it’s worth thinking about how paid podcasts could fit into a long term strategy.

ARPU over subscriber numbers

It’s hard to point to a subscription service which hasn’t raised its prices over the past 12 months. Even Spotify, which had kept its pricing the same since 2011, increased the monthly cost by $1-$2 across its tiers. In the publishing world, the price of a digital news subscription has actually increased an average of 19% in the UK.

There are multiple intertwined reasons for this trend. News fatigue and economic pressures are contributing to a subscription slowdown. In addition, after a rush to subscriptions during the pandemic, many publishers are hitting a natural plateau anyway. Inevitably, attention is now turning to retention and reducing churn.

“Subscriptions are a forever business,” wrote The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey. “Everything in publishing takes longer than you would think. And building a subscriptions business is the ultramarathon. After early wins, subscriptions become a grind, with optimization tactics coming to the forefront.”

The Atlantic’s CEO Nicholas Thompson noted back in 2022 that he was less interested in getting a million subscriptions than he was getting to $50 million in reader revenue. “You can get to a million subs pretty easily – you can massively discount,” he said. “If you set a goal solely on subscribers, it can move you in some harmful ways.”

Defector was a good example of this more sustainable focus this year. In their third annual report, they listed a subscription revenue increase in 2023 of just 4%, when compared with 20% a year earlier. But they also managed a 90% retention rate when half of their subscribers came up for renewal.

It’s tempting to get sucked into the race for big numbers, many of which are achieved through hefty discounting. A longer-term, more sustainable view is definitely focused on metrics like retention and engagement, and making sure subscribers are satisfied with what they’re paying for.

Going forward

This isn’t to suggest that you should be immediately scrambling to reduce the number of newsletters sent, or to start flatplanning a magazine! As we found from the Media Moments 2023 report, many of the biggest challenges and opportunities publishers have faced this year have been iterations of what we’ve seen in previous years.

These trends point towards something AI cannot replicate: creating valuable content that (human) readers will be willing to pay for. Whether that be in cycling, cooking, fitness, politics or B2B, doubling down on quality and looking at ways to increase the value of what you’re producing is a winning strategy for 2024 and beyond.

Featured Post | Innovation | Policy | Revenue

Three trends that will shape media strategy in 2024

January 11, 2024 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

The past year has been a difficult one for many media companies. After the rapid bounce back from early Covid-era travails, more than 20,000 jobs were lost in the US media sector alone in 2023, with few publishers emerging unscathed.

At a local level, news deserts continued to grow, while digital darlings like BuzzFeed News shuttered and Vice Media filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, august publications like Bloomberg Businessweek and The Nation announced plans to reduce the frequency of their physical products, and the venerable National Geographic laid off the last of its staff writers.

At the same time, concerns increasingly arose about compensation and copyright infringements from Generative AI platforms, as well as the impact of tools like ChatGPT on media traffic and search habits.

Furthermore, dramatic drops in referral traffic witnessed by many leading publishers from major search engines and social networks added a further set of challenges for content creators to deal with.

2024’s major media trends

So, how do media companies respond to these many challenges and put their best foot forward in the year ahead? Here are three essential recommendations:

1. Revenue diversification is more important by the day

Media companies have known for some time that they need to diversify their revenues. This need is only going to become more acute in the year ahead. Although global advertising spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion for the first time in 2024, this growth is not being felt by most media companies.

Fresh analysis from WARC finds that spending on content media (TV, publishing, audio and cinema) has remained largely stagnant over the past decade. While advertising markets have boomed in that time, media players have seen their share of total advertising revenues decline from 71.0% a decade to 27.2% in 2024.

With these new monies flowing to the likes of Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance and Meta, publishers and broadcasters “are fishing in a finite pool.” They’re essentially competing against one another for existing revenues, rather than attracting new ones, argues Alex Brownsell, Head of Content at WARC Media.

Put another way, “every media owner – from NBCUniversal and The New York Times, to Snap and JCDecaux, to Disney and Spotify – is competing for share of a largely fixed market,” Brownsell concludes.

Against this backdrop, the need to reduce advertising dependency and diversify income sources becomes more apparent than ever.

Within this, expect to see a greater emphasis on bundling as a means to drive loyalty and grow revenues. Blending different editorial propositions and purposes (e.g. news and non-news content) can be key, as The New York Times has shown. An ability, depending on your subscription type, to share access to your NYT bundle with friends and family can further deepen perceptions of value and reduce churn.

“So far most of these bundles have been intra-company collaborations,” observes Nic Newman in his latest annual trends report for the Reuters Institute. “But in 2024 we can expect to see some publishers partnering with other providers to add extra value to their bundle,” he predicts.

Globally, media players are also placing a greater emphasis on the value of hosting events as part of a revenue diversification strategy. Respondents to a survey by WAN-IFRA found that almost a fifth (18.8%) of publisher income comes from sources beyond advertising and subscriptions. This reinforces earlier findings shared by twipe, pointing to areas such as premium audio content, events and e-commerce as some of the most promising areas for income growth.

2. AI remains in the spotlight

The impact of Generative AI dominated every media conference I attended last year. That’s not surprising given how rapidly this technology is developing.

Lest we forget, its posterchild ChatGPT only launched in November 2022. It had 140 million users a month at the time. By its first birthday, it boasted 100 million a week , demonstrating how quickly it had been adopted, including by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies.

Despite this general enthusiasm, “the response from publishers [to Generative AI] has been a mix of defense and offense,” observes Kevin Anderson at Pugpig. On the one hand, publishers are embracing this technology and exploring its possibilities in areas such as automation, personalization and the creation of new products.

In Norway, for example, Aftenposten, the country’s biggest daily newspaper (part of the Schibsted group), has used AI-generated audio articles to deepen engagement and engage younger audiences. Within six months of launch, the audience for these AI-generated audio stories was akin to that of their podcasts, demonstrating the potential efficiency of this tool once it has been set up.

At the same time, they are also looking to limit the ability of AI platforms to be trained by scraping their content for free. “What media companies are saying is AI won’t be built without us,” contends Vincent Berthier at Reporters Without Borders.

This tension is perhaps most publicly prominent at The New York Times. Just before Christmas, the company launched a lawsuit against Open AI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, highlighting how “millions of articles from The New York Times were used to train chatbots that now compete with it.” The move came hot off the heels of the Gray Lady appointing Zach Seward as their first Editorial Director of A.I. Initiatives. It’s a role that encompasses training, experimentation and prototyping, as well as identifying when the company should, and should not, use Generative AI.

The coming year will likely only see this type of dichotomy grow even more pronounced.

We can expect to see greater moves towards AI regulation, more lawsuits issued by publishers as they seek to protect their material. We will also see more partnerships, like those inked between OpenAI and major publishers including Axel Springer and the Associated Press. Meanwhile, insights from a new survey conducted by the Reuters Institute point to a focus on using this technology for “under the hood” services such as transcription and copyediting.

Whatever your approach, having a strategy for using and deploying AI remains key, not least because of the potential reputational harm when this is poorly executed.

3. Audience development grows in importance

A third area of focus for many media companies in the year ahead will be audience development.

Alongside continued exertions to reach and engage with new audiences, businesses will be increasingly absorbed in efforts to deepen relationships with existing consumers. This will involve creating opportunities for interaction, dialogue and feedback, as well as moves to understand, and better serve, audience needs and preferences.

It’s an area where AI can help, argues Dmitry Shishkin, the incoming CEO at Ringier Media. For Shishkin, data and suggestions generated by AI should be used as an “editorial co-pilot” that will inform content strategies and efforts to ensure “necessary distinctiveness.”

“Media success now thrives on differentiation and specialization,” he told Journalism.co.uk. That means an emphasis on “quality and focus,” he said, as newsrooms seek to “establish a compelling reason for repeated engagement.”

To help generate this engagement, outlets may look at fresh ways to develop more personal and direct relationships with audiences.

Tools like Subtext enable media organizations and creators to text their audience as you would a friend. New York Times Opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo holds Office Hours where he chats with readers on the phone. Tortoise Media in the UK holds open editorial meetings. Other outlets are experimenting with mechanisms like WhatsApp Channels and Discord to reach audiences in new places.

All of this is a counterpoint to what Kevin Anderson notes was the “volume-over-value strategies” that many publishers pursued for too long. Media markets have changed, Anderson argues, remarking that reaching large audiences through search and social and then serving them with ads is seldom a model that’s fit for purpose. “It’s all about relationships,” he writes.

In doing this, as we’ve argued before, publishers should be learning more from the Creator Economy. That’s a sector steeped in nurturing and leveraging relationships to drive revenues and loyalty.

Demonstrating that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, Francesco Zaffarano writes in Nieman Lab about the success of “platform-based news brands.” These outlets do have large audiences on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. They harness this to generate revenues through paid partnerships with brands and donations using similar tactics as those in the Creator Economy.

Zaffarano cites outlets such as Impact in the USA, The News Movement in the UK, Hugo Décrypte in France and Ac2ality in Spain, as examples of this phenomenon. Arguably, their success hinges on aligning their work’s tone and relevance with their target audience, coupled with a presence in online spaces where their audience already spends a lot of time.

In those instances, this takes the form of mainstream social networks. But, for other audiences and media outlets, the answer could lie closer to home, or in smaller (even niche) online communities. Media players will need to continually analyze audience needs and habits to find the solutions that are right for them.

A strategic path forward for digital media

In the fast-evolving media landscape, 2024 promises to be yet another year of rapid transformation and adaptation. The year ahead looks set to be defined by the need for media companies to focus on diversifying revenue streams, navigating the complex realm of AI, and prioritizing audience development.

Revenue diversification remains a paramount priority for media companies, especially as their slice of global advertising revenues stagnates. In that climate, retention and fresh sources of income continue to be critical.

Secondly, the role and impact of Artificial Intelligence cannot be underestimated. Media players will continue to experiment with the potential benefits that this technology can unlock. Yet, they’ll do this while also seeking to protect their assets from being cannibalized by it. Navigating this tightrope will not be easy, but it’s one that organizations large and small will have to tread.

Lastly, as media companies strive to deepen relationships with existing consumers at the same time as expanding their reach, audience development has to take center stage. Fostering meaningful relationships will see the use of different tactics and platforms. Nevertheless, the end goals are the same: to demonstrate value and distinctiveness, and in turn drive retention and loyalty.

As media companies prioritize these areas, they need to be mindful of being strategic in these efforts. The pace of change can be daunting, but it also presents considerable opportunities. Leveraging new AI tools, diversifying revenue streams, cultivating stronger connections and delivering distinctive content are all areas that can enable media companies to do more than just survive 2024. Executed correctly, it should also enable them to thrive for some time in the years ahead.

In 2024, media companies must hit the platform reset button

December 14, 2023 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

It’s been a long time coming. But 2023 has signaled that it’s finally time for publishers to reconsider the volatile, often one-sided, relationship that many of them have with some of the biggest tech platforms.

Media companies have been impacted by multiple developments over the past year, as platforms have progressively deprioritized news, canceled or reduced their news-related programs and products, or made the presence of news content on their platforms much less user-friendly.

These moves are the latest in a long line of changes that have pulled the rug out from underneath the feet of content creators. And while the tech tide may again turn in the favor of media companies, history tends to repeat itself. Publishers, therefore, should be wary about how warmly they embrace any future overtures from our tech overlords, as well as rushing headlong into the next new thing. Too often some publishers have dived into new initiatives like Mastodon or WhatsApp Channels, without a clear strategy or goals (content, engagement, monetization) in mind.

As a result, the current situation is an opportunity to pause, take stock, and reset these dynamics.

What this means for you: 7 key principles for 2024 (and beyond)

With that in mind, here are seven recommendations for publishers as they reassess what their relationships with platform providers should look like.

1. Platform diversification is essential

Over-dependence on individual platforms for revenue – or referral traffic – is risky. Sudden switches in platform priorities can quickly leave creative partners in the lurch. Outlets like LittleThings, Mic and BuzzFeed (to name but three) have all paid the price for putting too many eggs in a single platform basket. Avoiding this fate means that diversification is crucial.

So, where should publishers place their bets? The answer will vary. However, all publishers should consider reducing their reliance on the trusted trifecta of Facebook, Twitter/X and even Google Search.

The past year has reinforced this need, following precipitous drops in traffic from Google, Facebook and X. And as more audiences turn to Generative AI tools like Chat GPT for answers to their questions, attribution and referral traffic look set to take a further beating.

As Adrienne LaFrance, the executive editor of The Atlantic, recently told The New York Times, “the disruption to an already difficult business model is real.”

2. Spot and tap into shifts in audience behavior

In response to the current wave of disruption, media companies should reconsider platforms that they’ve previously perhaps overlooked or underinvested in.

When it comes to scale, YouTube is the 300lb gorilla in the room. With 2.5 billion users it’s the second most active social network in the world. In the USA 26% of adults regularly get news on YouTube, just behind Facebook (30%). Yet, arguably, many media companies (not just news providers) undervalue the platform.

TikTok’s popularity – especially with younger audiences – makes it a platform few media companies can afford to ignore. Since launching in the U.S. in August 2018, TikTok has grown to 80 million monthly active users. Globally 1.1 billion use the platform each month.

Subsequently, in the past year, The New York Times and the BBC launched news accounts on TikTok, having previously resisted pressure to do so. Part of the rationale for this, per the Pew Research Center, is that “the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has more than quadrupled, from 3% in 2020 to 14% in 2023.” That increases to nearly a third (32%) of those aged 18-29 years old, a figure that excludes non-news use.

TikTok and YouTube are also part of wider shifts in search habits, as users head directly to different platforms to look for answers to specific questions.

The migration from conventional search engines (especially among younger consumers) is being further accelerated by the adoption of Generative AI. That has implications for media companies’ AI strategies, as well as ensuring that they are producing content, and optimizing for search, on the platforms that their target audiences are using.

3. Understand that audiences are also diversified

Diversification is also seen in our wider media habits. On average, the world’s 4.89 billion social media users engage with seven different social networks every month.

However, audiences do not use platforms in the same way or for the same purposes, and publisher strategies need to reflect this.

The rise of TikTok, for example, has led to an investment in more vertical video content. After pioneering short videos, its algorithms – and users – increasingly embrace longer material, opening up fresh opportunities for publishers.

In contrast, other vertical-led channels, like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat, continue to favor shorter video content. Reels account for 20% of the time spent on Instagram. YouTube Shorts has 1.5 billion monthly active users. These findings cannot be ignored.

Meanwhile, the rise of Smart TVs has led to more than 700 million hours of YouTube videos being consumed on TV screens every day. That’s encouraging more horizontal content, as publishers and creators focus on this trend.

Collectively, this means that publishers will need to deploy different strategies and content propositions to tap into these audiences. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

4. You can’t, and shouldn’t be, everywhere

Just because you can be on a platform doesn’t mean that you should be. Resources are finite, so determining the best fit requires careful analysis of demographics and usage habits.

The BBC argued TikTok wasn’t initially the right platform for them. They were also worried about spreading themselves too thin. At a time of continued layoffs – with more than 20,000 media jobs lost this year alone – that concern will resonate with many companies.

The recent boycott of Twitter by major advertisers including Warner Bros. and Disney should also give media execs pause for thought. Brand safety is a consideration for all companies.

As Platformer’s Casey Newton recently told CNN. “Every day, more brands are waking up to the reality that Twitter is dead and X is a cesspool… The global town square is now dispersed across many different platforms, and increasingly the most relevant conversations are taking place elsewhere.”

5. Go niche, or go home

Many of these conversations take place in smaller online communities and some publishers may see the value in exploring these more niche networks.

Platforms like Twitch or Reddit are not for everyone, but their users are loyal and spend a lot of time on site. Recognizing this, last year The Washington Post appointed angel mendoza as their redditor in chief.

It’s worth noting that more Americans claim to obtain their news from Twitch than Snapchat, and Twitch’s reach for news is on a par with LinkedIn. And with over a quarter of Americans saying they regularly get their news on Nextdoor, this presents interesting questions for local news outlets and specialist information providers about how they can – and should – be engaging with the platforms.

These types of networks may go under the radar of many publishers, yet their reach – and the engagement of the communities on them – may mean they’re worth another look.

6. Recalibrate what “success” looks like

As money and traffic from tech platforms dry up, metrics beyond clicks and views become more salient.

Historically, some publishers have financially benefited from page views on different social networks. Facebook reported in 2017 that it was paying out more than $1 million per day to publishers as a result of Instant Articles. However, that stream dried up as the company shifted focus to the creator economy.

Off-site referrals have also been important. A Deloitte study from 2019 found that across several major European markets, platforms drove 61% of visits to publishers’ websites and an estimated 6.2% of publishers’ total revenues.

But with money and traffic drying up, brand awareness and engagement may be better indicators.

Although TikTok has partnered with marquee publishers like Condé Nast, DotDash Meredith and NBCU, many companies find it a difficult platform to monetize. It is also a platform that many users don’t swipe away from, meaning that traditional clickthrough models just aren’t applicable.

7. Focus on building direct relationships with audiences

With third-party referrals and revenues declining, audience relationship-building is paramount.

That can take many forms. Many publishers are focused on their own products – like newsletters and podcasts – as well as capturing first-party data. They’re also looking to reduce churn, upsell existing subscribers and attract others through bundling.

It also means leveraging specific external platforms to foster community and loyalty.

GQ’s launch on Discord is part of this trend. The move enables them to engage with micro communities, often existing subscribers, around topics like fashion and everything Web3. “The way that we are thinking about it is we are throwing a party, GQ is the host, Discord is the venue and you are invited,” explained Joel Pavelski, GQ’s executive director of global audience development and social media.

We can expect more media companies to embrace these engagement strategies, leveraging specific (not necessarily mainstream) platforms to create greater loyalty.

Moving forward

Media companies find themselves at a crossroads in 2024. Traffic referrals from tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter/X have dwindled, underscoring the need for publishers to pivot their platform strategies. To do this, they must diversify and reimagine relationships with their audiences and tech partners.

Publishers can no longer rely on traffic and revenues from many of the platforms they have partnered heavily with in the past. A fresh approach means moving into new spaces, adapting their content and SEO strategies around evolving consumer behaviors, and thinking carefully about where to allocate their resources.

Larger and niche platforms offer distinct opportunities, but success in this new era will likely look different from the past. Subscriptions, memberships, native advertising, and exclusive content access, might play a greater role in these settings. And in some cases, building brand awareness and loyalty may be the primary goal.

Whatever the approach, the strategic challenge is the same: to reduce dependence on a small core group of third-party platforms and to approach new platform relationships with the benefit of hard-won wisdom. Referrals and third-party-derived revenues may not be as viable as they once were. As a result, publishers must diversify their reach and build direct connections with their audiences in a plethora of different spaces and places. In doing so, publishers need to blend scale and niche to establish a more resilient and adaptable presence across the digital ecosystem.

The time to begin implementing this model is now.

Reputation matters. Don’t bend under platform pressure

December 7, 2023 Jieun Shin, Assistant Professor, College of Journalism and Communications – University of Florida

People are increasingly opting out of the news. According to the Digital News Report 2023 from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, 36% of people around the world sometimes or often actively avoid news. So it is no surprise that “news avoidance” has emerged as a hot topic among academics who study news media. It’s a growing problem, with major implications for society.

In fact, this topic was chosen as the main theme of the pre-conference at the 2023 International Communication Association (ICA), the largest conference in the field of communication. The event was packed with speakers and attendees who poured over analysis and future predictions. Presenters cited numerous studies that show that those who don’t read the news are less likely to vote and feel detached from the community.

Unsurprisingly, there is no simple solution to this crisis. However, there was a general consensus that there’s a need for an increase in public assistance, education, and policies that support news media.

But ask yourself: If there were public funding available to support news as a public service, would your organization qualify? Are you providing quality news? Or have you fallen prey to algorithmic enticements to chase clicks?

An alarming trend

The news avoidance trend has been underway for a long time, driven by several factors. For one, people are overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information. They also feel worn out by a constant flow of grim news, which is cognitively exhausting. And let’s face it – from TikTok dance challenges to cat memes – there are a ton of entertaining alternatives for people to tune in to online.

But while people are enjoying entertaining content on their social feeds, they are also consuming news on these platforms. Or at least they think they are.

People have developed a news-finds-me (NFM) mentality, which creates the illusion that they are well-informed about important news even when they are not. Because they have access to news (or a facsimile of it) through social media any time and all the time, people falsely believe important news will find them.

This becomes particularly alarming as we increasingly see social and search platforms actively back away from news brands. A New York Times article points to actions and announcements by the likes of Meta (parent to Facebook and Instagram), X (aka Twitter), and even Google that make news less visible.

For news publishers, these converging trends point to a shrinking audience and a fiercely competitive environment for attention.

Attention-seeking behavior

One temptation is writing for eyeballs. Anyone vying for attention online knows that clickbait, rage-bait, and sensational news perform well in the digital marketplace. Arguably, social platforms incentivize this type of content.

Sadly, low-quality content typically outperforms high-quality news in terms of today’s measures of ROI. Sensational stories, aggregated news, and gossip are cheap to produce and easy to spread.

Even more worrisome is the fact that numerous studies (including mine) have found that false information spreads more quickly and widely on social media than true information. Unlike quality news reports, which are bound by facts, fake news and titillating stories can be created solely to capture audience attention, with whatever claims or sensational statements capture the most views.

So how can genuine news compete in this marketplace of attention? The playing field seems rigged in favor of hyperbolic sludge.

What we are observing today is a systematic problem that no single innovative business model can break through. It is a combined result of a vicious news cycle, distracted consumers, the dominance of platforms, and more. At least the growing journalism crisis provides a clear call to action. Media scholars even say that fake news is the best thing that’s happened to journalism. It allows high-quality news media to shine.

But while scholars continue to see the value of quality news, the trend of news avoidance among general audiences continues. Not only is it critical that we find a means to support the production of quality news, but we must also figure out how to re-engage audiences with it.

Solutions for journalism

From growing cries for social platform reform to tax-based and remunerative approaches, there are voices demanding public interventions to support sustainable news. In the U.S., legislation designed to support local news is increasingly popping up in Congress and state legislatures.

Given their dominance in the consumption of news, platforms should be pressured to incorporate measures of news quality into their ranking algorithms. Currently, several projects such as the Trust Project and NewsGuard provide credibility measures of news sites to elevate quality news.

Media literacy programs also offer some promise for publishers, as they emphasize the reputation of sources. For example, some university and local libraries keep track of reliable news sources and share the lists with residents.

In the meantime, news publishers must stick to the core values that are the foundation of journalistic work. Of course that is easier said than done given all the systematic obstacles listed above. The unfortunate reality is that quality news is expensive to produce. And, from the available metrics, this so-called high-quality news is not sufficiently valued in the marketplace.

However, reputation matters in the media business. Therefore, competing on the social platforms’ terms – with eyeball-chasing clickbait – won’t solve the attention deficit and will likely only exacerbate the misinformation problem (as people skim misleading headlines). While publishers may have to pivot to what’s working on social platforms (video, for example), they must not sacrifice core standards.

In the post-truth era, trust is the most valuable capital. Maintaining journalistic quality is the only way to protect the business in this tumultuous time. News providers are wise to remember that reputation is difficult to build but easy to destroy.

About the author

Jieun Shin (Ph.D, University of Southern California) is an Assistant Professor in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Her research explores information diffusion on social media focusing on misinformation and news use.

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How NPR’s audience-first approach drives advertising success

November 30, 2023 Theresa Cramer – Independent Journalist

Savvy publishers know that balancing user experience with the need to drive revenue is key to thriving in today’s media marketplace. For NPR—where donations from an engaged and loyal audience are as important to their diverse revenue streams as sponsorship dollars—building trust is paramount to continued success. That’s why the National Public Media (NPM) team (the corporate sponsorship subsidiary of NPR) strives to uphold the values that NPR exhibits and years of data says its audience has come to expect, even as it develops content and advertising campaigns for sponsors.

Erica Osher, Vice President of Sponsorship Products and NPM Creative, says years of affinity research tells her that 72% of NPR’s audience has more positive feelings about NPR sponsors. Why? Because of a phenomenon called trust transference. NPR’s audience trusts the organization and its personalities, and that trust transfers to brands that support the news organization.

Furthermore, NPR’s research shows that its programming and journalism are “personally important” to its audience and that, all things being equal, they will buy products that are advertised on NPR over competing products. “We understand that maintaining the trust in journalism translates to our sponsors,” says Osher. With that in mind, the NPM team works “to obtain user feedback, especially when implementing new programs.” Keeping the user in mind at every turn allows NPM to create ad products that are beneficial for everyone involved.

Facts over flash

In order to maintain that all-important user trust, NPM enforces strict standards for sponsors who want to reach NPR’s digital audience with their advertising. In many ways, the guidelines sponsors must adhere to are not all that different from the standards journalists must uphold. Sponsors can only make substantiated claims in their ads, and even “broad claims” are rejected by the NPM team. No misleading creative or messaging is allowed, and sponsors cannot use disparaging language. Certain categories of sponsors are held to an even higher standard.

Another best practice suggestion for brands looking to reach NPR’s audience is to avoid inauthentic messaging. Osher says she often urges brands to speak for themselves, and feature speakers who can communicate genuinely, rather than just hitting a list of talking points. Avoiding jargon and technical language also helps keep the messaging relatable.

Holding sponsors to a higher standard is just the start of building better ads. Osher’s team thinks about how many ads per page—or podcast—the audience will tolerate. They use lazy loading to ensure content does not shift on a page because of an ad, and always test how any new major placements will impact a page. In essence, they strive to meet and sometimes improve on Better Ad Coalition Standards.

“We have these guidelines that we stick to and need to be balanced with the need for revenue,” says Osher. “When we do it well, the audience is receptive… but they hold us accountable.”

Best practices in action

So, what does it look like when sponsors take NPM’s standards to heart and deliver the kind of content NPR audiences want to see? In the case of Mattress Firm, NPM Creative (with the help of Spark Foundry) crafted a campaign around the science of sleep as part of its Brand Soundscapes product offering, which includes Center Stage. Interviews with sleep experts lead to tangible advice for readers on how to calm their minds and get better sleep.

Osher says that, as with most campaigns, her team tested different images and headlines to find what resonated best. “Featuring people is always effective,” she says. The Mattress Firm campaign, which strives to educate readers and listeners about how to get good sleep and why it matters, uses doctors to lend legitimacy to the topic. Listening to one of the segments, it’s easy to forget you are listening to sponsor content rather than a story segment about health and wellness. Year-over-year, Osher says, NPM has increased the play rate on its Center Stage Soundscapes product by about 33% and the average completion rate by roughly 19%.

Mass Mutual worked with NPM Creative to create custom Spotlight Mid-rolls to run across NPR podcasts. A case study describes the campaign: “The creative featured director Brian Trzcinski, Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA). He shared how MassMutual financial professionals can help business owners balance the needs of today and tomorrow, including planning for a comfortable retirement.” Mass Mutual also used NPM’s research and measurement services to measure “campaign insights, optimize for success and ultimately make an impact.” According to the case study, the custom audio yielded a conversion rate (CR) 18% higher than standard 30-second mid-roll placements.

The success of NPM’s campaigns is due, in large part, to its commitment to producing sponsor content that feels true to NPR’s brand. With that in mind, the team has also moved away from traditional banner placements in its newsletters and switched to incorporating a native sponsorship unit. Taking a more text-based, story-driven approach has increased the click-through rate by 1,850% for the same campaign, says Osher.

The “facts over flash” approach that NPM takes when developing and implementing campaigns for sponsors has reaped rewards for sponsors as well as its own bottom line. A laser-like focus on what its audience expects and a willingness to hold sponsors to a high set of standards has created a virtuous cycle of great content that informs readers and listeners, creates a halo effect for brands, and keeps NPR in business.

Choose your words wisely: The role of language in media trust

November 16, 2023 Kendall Moe, Senior Project Manager – UF Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology

Trust – and the lack of it – has become the metric of choice when discussing the alienation individuals feel regarding news organizations. When we consider what the metric is telling us, the picture is undeniably grim.

In an October 2023 poll, Gallup found that more people said they had no trust at all in the media (39%) than those that said they had a great deal of trust (32%). Increasing accountability and transparency are oft-cited prescriptions news organizations focus on to build trust.

Getting to the root of trust issues

However, many people say that the reasons they don’t trust the media include a failure to cover both sides of an issue and the perception that journalists have a political bias, particularly a liberal bias. The Gallup poll reflected a 47% trust gap between Democrats (58%) and Republicans (11%). That said, trust among Democrats is falling significantly for the same reason that it has plummeted for Republicans: a perception of bias, in this case, a conservative bias. The nation’s political polarization is further driving down media trust.

It is understandable that media organizations believe that audience perception of bias can be addressed through transparency efforts focused on the way journalists report and disseminate the news. Unfortunately, there’s a fundamental element of storytelling that may have a much bigger impact on the appearance of bias: word choice.

It’s difficult to address issues of bias when people fail to see themselves reflected in the words journalists use. Language is not merely a tool for communication but a reflection of positioning and perspective, bias and blame. Academic studies show that trust and distrust are encoded in the very language choices we make.

Research we’ve been conducting at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications is identifying patterns of common language usage in coverage of controversial and potentially divisive subjects that could drive wedges and further damage trust. It is possible that, by recoding words away from inherent biases and towards authentic language people use to describe their experiences, we may find a pathway that engenders trust.

While the pursuit of trust is indeed a noble one, it feels more ambitious than the current climate allows. Therefore, journalists should ask the question: Is trust entirely in my control? And if not, what is? Our work has steered us toward focusing on what can be controlled: authenticity, intentionality and precision. We believe these elements can serve as the building blocks that lead to greater trust.

Based on that work, we’re developing a machine-learning tool journalists can use to identify potentially biased language and use that feedback to make more intentional word choices. The tool, called Authentically, is aimed at equipping journalists with the insights to make informed decisions in their writing. Authentically is currently in the alpha stage of development and we’re working with newsroom partners to test functionality.

When complete, the tool will operate in real time to flag words that merit more careful consideration. By providing a more robust context to the connotations of language, journalists are given the opportunity to ask themselves: Is this really what I meant to say? Does this accurately represent the events I’m describing? Is this language biased?

Word choices and perceived bias

Throughout our investigation of multiple news topics, common patterns of use emerged. In our analysis of abortion coverage, the data indicated that words conveying a sense of pride, such as “proudly,” “unapologetically” and “adamantly” frequently preceded the pro-life label, whereas the pro-choice label was frequently preceded by words indicating a sense of necessity or urgency, such as “necessarily,” “increasingly” and “relentlessly.” While these differences might appear subtle, they raise critical questions: what is being communicated when the language used around one position consistently denotes an undertone of morality while the other suggests one of urgency?

In examining coverage of racial justice protests, specifically regarding the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the findings spoke for themselves. The verbs used to describe protest actions repeatedly drew comparisons to fire or destruction, such as “spark,” “fuel,” “erupt,” “ignite,” “trigger” and “flare.” Is the recurrent use of this fiery language a deliberate choice, or is it a subconscious pattern of bias? What impact does that have on the perception of these demonstrations and of the people participating in them?

As concerns and polarizations regarding the climate grow, so does the importance to be conscious of our language choices. Verbs used with the term “global warming” appear to have a more neutral focus on the general effects, such as “occur” and “bring,” while verbs used with the term “climate change” delve deeper into the speed, intensity and potential ramifications of ongoing environmental shifts, such as “alter,” “fuel” and “accelerate.” Does the language journalists use – even when the differences are subtle – help convey the urgency of a climate emergency, and therefore shape perceptions?

While the foundational tenants of journalism remain core to audience trust, words matter. Our research has illustrated to us the pivotal role of authenticity, intentionality and precision in beginning to bridge the gap between the intention of the journalist and the ways their stories are received by the public.

About the authors

Janet Coats is the Managing Director of the Consortium on Trust in Media and Technology at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. She spent 25 years as a journalist and a decade as a media consultant before moving to higher education.

Kendall Moe is the Senior Project Manager and Researcher for the Authentically project and has conducted the language analysis described in this story. She has an undergraduate degree in linguistics and a master’s degree in special education from the University of Florida.