High stakes, constant deadlines, and unrelenting pressure are among the qualities that have long defined journalism. The economic pressures faced by the industry have intensified these issues. Unfortunately, burnout is a pressing issue among journalists that affects the industry as a whole. This year alone, more than half of journalists report they think of quitting due to burnout. Alarmingly, 40% of journalists report leaving their previous job because of burnout, underscoring how deeply it affects retention. Muck Rack surveyed nearly 1,800 journalists about their stress levels, burnout, vacation habits, and salary to explore how journalists navigate this career path. The report offers an eye-opening glimpse into the realities of the profession and highlights the challenges journalists face. It also explores potential pathways media companies can take to help create a better balance.
High-stress levels, workload, and the “always-on” dilemma
Journalists report some of the highest stress levels among professionals. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most stressful, most journalists rated themselves at a 7. Only 20% of respondents described their stress levels below the midpoint, while 67% placed them above it. Several factors drive persistent tension, including a demanding workload and inadequate pay. They also emphasized the impact of modern media’s pervasive “always-on” culture. In other words, primary stressors contributing to burnout are overwhelming workloads, insufficient salaries, and the expectation of constant availability.
The workload for journalists is a significant contributor to their stress. The data reveals that most journalists work on more than four stories simultaneously, with a considerable number handling seven or more projects at once. Managing multiple stories demands high levels of organization and focus, leaving little room for rest or downtime.
The expectation of being “always on” compounds stress levels. Ninety-six percent of journalists report difficulty switching off after work, and about 64% work more than 40 hours weekly. Of these, 13% work over 51 hours weekly. Even when journalists aren’t officially on the clock, the nature of the job often pulls them back in—80% of journalists work outside regular business hours at least once a week.
With heavy workloads and constant pressure, it’s no surprise that many journalists find it difficult to take time off. The most common reasons for skipping vacations include overwhelming workloads, staffing shortages, and the expectation to remain connected.
Even when journalists manage to schedule vacation time, their ability to disconnect is limited. Nearly 70% of respondents said their vacations were interrupted by work. Fewer than one in three say they are able to keep work completely at bay while on paid time off (PTO).
Work environment
The working environment can significantly impact stress levels and overall work-life balance. Journalists are fairly split in their preferences for work arrangements, with many seeking hybrid or fully remote options. Over half of respondents reported that their current work setup positively contributes to their work-life balance. However, a considerable number expressed dissatisfaction with their current arrangements, indicating that improvements in flexibility could help ease stress.
Mental health is another critical aspect of balancing a demanding career with personal well-being. However, fewer than a quarter of journalists have access to mental health services at work. This lack of support is concerning, especially considering the field’s high-stress levels and burnout. While about half of the journalists we surveyed believe they would receive support from their coworkers during mental health struggles, only 42% expect the same from workplace leadership.
The salary gap
The financial realities of journalism also weigh heavily on the work-life balance of professionals. The typical salary for journalists is $67,000, though this figure varies significantly between freelancers and full-time staff. Freelancers, on average, earn $60,000, while non-freelancers earn about $70,000. Over a quarter of freelancers earn less than $40,000 annually, while none earn more than $250,000.
Journalists are the heart of the media business. Without their work, there is no content, no news, and, ultimately, no business model to sustain the industry. They generate stories that inform, educate, and engage audiences, providing the core product that media companies rely on. Yet, despite their essential role, journalists face mounting challenges threatening their ability to continue in the profession. The high stress, relentless deadlines, and mental health strains highlighted in this report are not just personal issues but systemic ones that risk undermining the very foundation of the media industry. If journalists cannot balance their workloads and personal well-being, the ripple effects will inevitably impact content quality and the media business’s sustainability.
To effectively support journalists and safeguard their well-being, media organizations must prioritize the establishment of clear boundaries for after-hours work. They should also create dedicated “focus hours” that are free from unnecessary disruptions. Encouraging uninterrupted paid time off (PTO) is equally crucial, allowing journalists to fully recharge without the looming pressure of work.
Beyond these structural changes, fostering a culture rooted in empathy, open communication, and peer support can cultivate a healthier, more collaborative environment. By embracing these strategies, media companies will lessen the possibility of burnout. They will also help also ensure that journalists remain resilient, creative, and engage, which will help preserving the integrity and sustainability of the industry.
Today’s employees are focused on more than just a steady paycheck. To improve their work-life balance, many media professionals seek flexibility when it comes to hours and work shifts – including the option of four-day workweeks, hybrid shifts, and remote work. In fact, research finds that 42% of office workers would take a 10% pay cut to have the flexibility to work from home. But flexibility is not necessarily a fully-remote work schedule.
New research that looks at the preferences of advertising industry professionals finds that they prefer hybrid work over fully remote or fully on-site scenarios. This stated preference spans demographics, tenure levels, and company size.
However, more would prefer to work completely from outside the office than are currently doing so, and there is a greater gap between current and preferred work scenarios among mid-career professionals, employees of local/regional media agencies, and those who identify as Black, Latino, and/or LGBTQ+. These preferences are revealed in the Myers Report 2024 Survey of Advertising Industry Professionals, based on a recent survey of 3,462 advertising professionals. The gap between current and preferred work scenarios offers insight to media leaders interested in attracting and retaining diverse talent.
Currently, most advertising professionals are engaged in hybrid work:
74% work in hybrid situations.
25% work entirely remotely.
1% of survey respondents work fully on-site.
Of the 25% who work fully remotely, a third are older professionals, 55 and up, whereas only one fifth of younger employees18 to 34 do. More than a third of all employees surveyed would prefer fully remote work.
64% prefer hybrid work.
34% prefer fully remote work.
The survey found small companies with 1-99 employees more likely to offer fully remote work as an option. Currently, 31% of those employed by small companies work entirely from outside the office, compared with just over 20% of employees at companies with 100-999 employees, and about 24% of those at companies with 20K+ employees. The discrepancy between employees who would prefer to work remotely and those currently doing so was lowest among the smallest companies.
Mind the gap!
Currently only 20% of Black advertising professionals work fully remotely. However, almost twice that amount (39%) would prefer to do so. There are also more Latino (37%) and LGBTQ+ (35%) employees who would prefer to work fully remotely as an ideal scenario. These findings are relevant to leaders responsible for DEI and HR, both as indicative of the need to cultivate more inclusive and supportive work environments, and as keys towards developing and maintaining a diverse workforce.
Mid-career professionals with 8-14 years in the industry are also more likely to prefer fully remote work (39%) than new employees or those with over 15 years of experience. Under 30% of employees with two or less years of experience prefer remote work, suggesting that early career professionals may look to on-site collaboration and interaction to improve their career trajectory, while more established professionals are seeking work-life balance.
Another significant gap appears among employees of local/regional media agencies, where fewer than 20% work fully remotely but over 40% would like to do so. This is an area for improvement when it comes to maximizing employee satisfaction and reducing turnover. In contrast, the alignment between actual and ideal work scenarios among advertisers and brand marketers is more even, with about 30% currently working remotely and about 35% stating that preference.
While there is a slightly higher preference for fully remote work among those aged 55 and up (37%), it is not dramatically different from the preference among the youngest group surveyed, people 18 to 34 (33%). Thus, the gap based on career experience is more significant than that based solely on age.
Set up for success
Based on the survey data, the report authors recommend investing in remote work infrastructure to strengthen workplace culture and improve worker engagement and effectiveness.
Bolster communication tools and collaboration platforms.
Facilitate team building activities.
Train managers on leading remote teams.
Draft clear remote work policy.
The report also recommends implementing more flexible work options. Although most advertising professionals of all demographics value the flexibility of working outside the office combined with the benefits of in-person collaboration, awareness of gaps in satisfaction levels can help employers stay competitive by maximizing healthy work environments. Recommendations include:
Conduct periodic surveys to assess staff satisfaction with current working arrangements.
Enable more remote and hybrid work options based on employee preferences.
Consider expanding remote work options for mid-career professionals to retain experienced talent.
Although there are more similarities than differences among worker preferences, even minor discrepancies can point to areas for improvement and help industry leaders maximize staff fulfillment and effectiveness.
Not too long ago, the consensus was that a significant digital reader revenue strategy could only work at two or three outlier news organizations. The New York Times had the breadth and depth and quality of content for which the average person highly engaged with the news might pay. The Wall Street Journal had a large potential base of readers who needed its specialized content for their jobs and who had expense accounts that would cover it.
Beleaguered regional newspapers such as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Boston Globe eventually proved this wrong. Voice of San Diego and dozens of other local and national nonprofit newsrooms found they could have public radio-like success with small donations from readers who understood the altruistic mission of accountability journalism.
Beyond the business side
Local news organizations are right to pursue the formula. We’re past the debate over whether a significant number of readers will pay to support strong journalism. It’s been proven they will.
Industry leaders and journalism funders continue to put crucial focus on testing and improving revenue models. Many cohorts of local publishers have been trained in the business-side factors involved in a reader revenue strategy. Help on achieving the level of journalism that will capture an audience and move them to give or subscribe has been much harder to come by.
And that’s the elephant in the room: The media support system – the dot orgs, foundations and funding organizations – need to figure out how to help make the journalism at under-resourced newsrooms strong and impactful enough to generate the kind of support that will make them sustainable. (And ultimately lead to more such journalism.)
This isn’t a question of building a business model or fundraising. This is about staffing and data acumen and the knowledge and tools it takes to create powerful journalism and a user experience that audiences value and support.
As they long have, amazing training opportunities exist through organizations such as IRE, ONA, SPJ, the Ida B. Wells Society and more. But the barriers for small and under-resourced news organizations to actually take advantage and put that training to use are high.
Small is the new normal
Zooming out, we see a local journalism landscape dominated by hundreds of very small newsrooms: local independent online startups that are one- to three-person operations and legacy Black and brown news organizations. They have limited resources or are chain-owned daily newspapers whose staffs have been reduced to one or two reporters.
First and foremost, these newsrooms need more direct operational funding to employ more journalists. This is something that the massive Press Forward initiative created by a coalition of journalism-supporting foundations is seeking to address.
But the industry also needs to have teams equipped for the future. Newsrooms like these will benefit from a system of training, resources and mentorship to support “capital J” accountability journalism in news ecosystems that are now decentralized.
Readers are well-served and grateful for coverage of the day-to-day news of the community. However, every newsroom yearns for the space and resources to also do work that goes deeper, that holds the powerful accountable, that has impact and drives change. It’s the kind of work that elevates the stature of your brand, that exposes your organization to more people, that is the catalyst to subscribe or give for many.
We need great journalism
I’d argue that the same dynamic applies to advertising at many news organizations, even if they don’t realize it. They can’t compete with the price, reach and targeting of the digital ad tech that drives the biggest online platforms. But small newsrooms can make a hell of a case to local advertisers that they want to be adjacent to and associated with the kind of journalism that has the community appreciative and engaged.
This has happened in incredible (even Pulitzer Prize-winning) ways and it is exciting how quickly collaborative journalism has been embraced. But it’s never completely organic. This movement has happened in large part through the facilitation, research, training, convening and cheerleading of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Solutions Journalism Network has built training programs into its facilitation of regional and topical journalism collaboratives. And ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting/Reveal, ICIJ and my alma mater, the Center for Public Integrity, helped show a new generation of investigative and single topic-focused nonprofits how having collaboration in your DNA allows you to punch far above your weight.
Meanwhile, Report for America is building training, mentorship and additional editing support into its process, to make sure that its ambitious goal of putting hundreds of additional reporters in under-resourced local newsrooms across the country has the intended impact. And the Investigative Editing Corps is pairing small newsrooms with experienced editors to provide support for enterprise and investigative reporting that goes beyond their typical daily news coverage.
Emphasis on essentials
Technology is also playing a part in making more advanced reporting possible in smaller newsrooms, from data journalism resources such as The Accountability Project and Big Local News to the document and records-access tools of Muck Rock.
When the Center for Public Integrity focused its mission four years ago on investigative reporting that confronts inequality in the U.S., we thought about how to scale that work beyond what our 25-person newsroom could do. When we obtained secret White House documents showing the true extent of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. We shared them directly with journalists across the country, and it saved lives. After spending thousands of hours obtaining and cleaning more than a decade’s worth of data about polling place locations and closures, we made it available to power not just our own reporting, but others’ work ranging from small local news organizations to NPR, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
A lightbulb went off when we were publishing “Unhoused and Undercounted,” an investigation that proved public school districts across the country were failing to identify and serve homeless students as required by federal law. We realized that this story, using our data analysis, could be written in almost any local community in the country and have a high potential for very direct impact in helping kids.
We were offering the data and the formula of questions to ask. How could we get it — and similar investigations — into the hands of any/every willing local newsroom able to tackle it, in a way that allowed them to have impact with few resources but also an entry point to go far deeper into the topic in their community if they could?
Decentralized journalism calls for decentralized solutions for seeding and supporting the kind of work that will spark a virtuous cycle of revenue that rewards the most impactful journalism. Our media ecosystem is supported by a robust network of organizations that are focused on keeping newsrooms afloat. But like all things digital, even this support must continue to evolve. Revenue models are only as effective as audiences’ willingness to support journalism. It’s time to focus on empowering under-resourced newsrooms to deliver the highest caliber journalism, to support society – and to inspire audiences to support them.
About the author
Matt DeRienzo is a veteran newsroom leader whose work over the past four years as editor in chief of the Center for Public Integrity was recognized with a national Edward R. Murrow Award for general excellence. Previously, he served as vice president of news for Hearst’s Connecticut newspapers and as the first full-time executive director of LION, a national nonprofit supporting local independent online news organizations. He can be reached at [email protected].
Burnout among newsroom employees has risen to critical levels. According to a recent study by the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), 84% of current journalists and 88% of those formerly employed as journalists say burnout has impacted them personally. Over 90% of both groups say they have observed burnout among colleagues. More than a third of all journalism professionals surveyed agreed that covering news is increasingly challenging today, compared to the past.
Burnout often appears as exhaustion, mental distancing from work, and reduced efficiency. For individuals, quality of life is impacted. For businesses, retention and productivity of the workforce are at stake. On a societal level, widespread burnout among news professionals threatens to jeopardize the high-quality reliable journalism necessary to maintain an informed public and a healthy democracy.
Solutions for newsroom burnout
The remedies to address newsroom employee burnout proposed in RJI’s study, The Burnout Crisis in Journalism: Solutions for Today’s Newsoom, sidestep those many executives currently find prohibitive, such as hiring more staff and raising salaries. Instead, the study focuses on solutions deemed most desirable among staff that are within reasonable reach of employers. The findings offer insight proactive leaders can utilize to improve career satisfaction and work-life balance in the workforce.
A total of 1,140 participants from across the industry, representing all 50 of the United States, completed the RJI survey. Of the participants, 39% were currently active journalists, and 21% were currently active in management. Former journalists and managers made up 15% of the survey participants, while 12% represented other aspects of the profession, and 12% were students and faculty members in journalism higher education programs.
Survey respondents chose two of 10 solution areas to address in more depth. Tellingly, the top five selected included:
Work hours and flexibility options.
Coverage responsibilities and workload.
Changes in newsroom culture.
Time off and vacation options.
Additional or improved benefits.
The other five solution areas which garnered less enthusiasm were: management training, career support, mental health support and resources, newsroom team building, and trauma training and resources.
Critical issues to address burnout
Agency: Journalists and other newsroom professionals express a clear desire to have more control over their workflows, job responsibilities, work environments, schedules, and output.
Flexibility
Journalists and managers want more flexibility when it comes to hours and work shifts – including the option of four-day workweeks, hybrid shifts, and remote work options.
Recognition
Acknowledging the valuable work of employees would help reduce burnout, according to 84% of current journalists and managers, and 93% of former journalists and managers.
Time off
Participants almost universally agreed that more vacation time would help with work-related fatigue. 100% of former news professionals and 94% of current managers and journalists say that more days off would ease burnout.
The authors of the study put forth concrete solutions to mitigate newsroom employee burnout. Many of these can be enacted relatively quickly and without major financial consequences:
Offer employees a four-day workweek option.
Allow more hybrid shifts.
Enable remote work from home at least once a week.
Offer more flexible shifts, enabling employees to choose when they work, as long as they complete the required hours and/or deliverables.
Evaluate and adjust workload balance among individual journalists and teams.
Provide additional days off.
Let workers have more input on content and how work gets done.
Evaluate newsroom culture with an eye towards increasing recognition and acknowledgement.
Newsroom burnout ripples across the pond
Journalist burnout is reaching crisis levels outside of the US as well. Research from the UK finds more journalists disconnecting from social media to preserve work life balance, and even to avoid threats and harassment. However, this move could potentially stymie their careers because social media plays a key role in discovering and connecting with new audiences, boosting important news content, and facilitating investigative research.
Before publications join new online platforms, it’s important to weigh ramifications in terms of employee workload and digital safety. Where such risks are unavoidable, newsrooms should consider ways to mitigate potential impacts. For example, rather than suggest employees manage stress on their own, UK researchers advise facilitating group discussions among colleagues aimed towards shaping long term policy.
As in the US, UK journalists studied are weary of leadership shifting the burden to staff by suggesting they distress by using their free time to pursue therapy, yoga, or meditation. These activities often leave underlying systemic issues in the workplace unresolved.
News executives worldwide must act on mitigating burnout now to sustain the vitality and integrity of the profession. In the U.S., strife around upcoming national elections is sure to increase strain on journalists. Proactive steps such as those suggested by the RJI study can help reduce stress, keep top quality professionals on the job, and sustain a landscape of abundant, reliable information for the public.
Building a diverse newsroom and delivering inclusive content is essential for ensuring the success of a media platform, according to the World Economic Forum. Diverse newsrooms better represent the variety of perspectives and experiences within society and are likely to create content that appeals to a wider audience base. Unfortunately, today’s newsrooms have a way to go to achieve diversity objectives.
A two-year study, The Damned Pipeline: U.S. News Industry’s Broken Parity Promise from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), explores the diversity of 22 major news organizations nationwide. The report findings show an underrepresentation of racial and ethnic cohorts among investigative teams and editors ―with an overwhelming prevalence of White news reporters (60%).
By contrast, Latino reporters comprise only 13% of investigative reporters but represent 19% of the U.S. population. Similarly, Black reporters comprise 9% of investigative teams, compared to their 13% share in the overall population. The survey also indicates that Indigenous reporters constitute fewer than 1% of investigative staff. On the other hand, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) reporters show a different trend, representing 11% of investigative staff compared to their 6% share in the population.
The report notes that traditional corporate newsroom managers need help establishing a culture that effectively mentors and recruits reporters of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Regarding the actual employee count of nearly 180 investigative reporters, about two dozen are Latino reporters, 19 are AAPI reporters, 15 are Black reporters, and two are Indigenous reporters.
Further, the need for more diversity is even more pronounced among editors. There are only seven Latino investigative editors, three Black investigative editors, two AAPI editors, and no Indigenous editors among the survey respondents.
The study shows progress in gender diversity ― 44% of reporters and 46% of editors identify as female.
Newsrooms pursue staff diversity
Some newsrooms are taking initiatives to prioritize diversity and ensure a more inclusive representation of different races, genders, ethnicities, and perspectives in their news reporting and decision-making processes.
Associated Press: The Associated Press (AP) revamped its investigative team over the last few years. They focused on broadening the concept of investigative reporting by non-specialists to develop investigative skills among more diverse staff members. The AP introduced inclusive hiring practices, mentoring programs, and internal fellowships. AP also established an investigative correspondents program, a six-month internal fellowship, and other mentoring opportunities.
ProPublica: Newsroom leaders at ProPublica focus on metrics, holding themselves accountable to increase the diversity of the reporting staff. Their initiatives include extending searches for diverse talent, an Investigative Editor training program, and increasing fellow salaries to $75,000 to attract a more diverse candidate pool.
Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles Times engaged with the NAHJ Task Force two years ago. At that time, racial and ethnic reporters comprised one-sixth of their investigative team covering a highly diverse metropolitan area. By September 2022, the LA Times announced the addition of three reporters to enhance its investigative team’s diversity in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity.
As the U.S. undergoes demographic shifts, it’s crucial for newsrooms, especially in specialized areas like investigations, to evolve accordingly. The task force views the survey and dialogues as initial measures in fostering industry accountability. NAHJ aspires to gather more newsroom partners in their ongoing commitment to mirror the evolving demographics changes in the U.S.
News organizations worldwide are adjusting their operational approaches in response to external shifts and internal dynamics. Reuters Institute’s annual report, Changing Newsrooms, explores these evolving newsrooms. They gathered insights from surveys and in-depth interviews with 135 senior industry leaders from 40 countries worldwide. The respondents include editors-in-chief/executive editors, CEOs, managing editors, and other senior positions in editorial, audience, talent development, and commercial.
Reuters’ research reveals a notable trend in adopting flexible work models among newsroom leaders, with 65% implementing varying rules. Within this landscape, 15% of the sampled organizations extend complete flexibility to employees, allowing them to choose their work location and work from home. However, a more common scenario shows half of the sample (52%) offering only some flexibility to their employees.
Approximately 30% of participants noted that their organizations require employees to be in the office on specific weekdays with strict enforcement. However, 22% report no active monitoring to verify adherence to this policy. Notably, 38% of respondents express concerns about a weakened sense of belonging due to hybrid and flexible working arrangements.
Like last year’s findings, many survey participants believe the shift to hybrid and flexible working has had a limited impact on productivity. Specifically, 48% express that productivity has remained unchanged, while 26% believe it has increased. Notably, a minority of 19% indicate that flexible and hybrid working has decreased productivity.
Retiring “hybrid work” and embracing flexibility
The report cites Brian Elliott from Future Forum advocating for retiring the term “hybrid work” in favor of embracing a more “flexible” approach. He emphasizes that employees seek the freedom to work where and when they perform best—a blend of team collaboration and individual autonomy. Many companies, he notes, opt for simplistic solutions rather than restructuring their practices for a truly distributed workforce.
AI adoption and adaptation
The research also explores how global news organizations adapt to external changes and internal dynamics, focus on talent strategies, and cultivate inclusive cultures. Three-quarters of respondents (74%) believe generative AI will enhance productivity without fundamentally changing journalism, while 21% foresee transformative effects.
Regarding establishing high-level principles governing the use of generative AI in news organizations, just over one-third of respondents (39%) mentioned that their organization is actively developing these principles. In comparison, 29% already have some guidelines in place. One-fifth (21%) stated that they are contemplating such principles but have yet to implement them.
Although a considerable number have either developed or are in the process of developing high-level principles, only 16% have detailed guidelines in place for the specific use of generative AI. Thirty-five percent are currently working on formulating these guidelines, and 30% are in the consideration phase.
Diversity challenges and strategies
Challenges persist in navigating the evolving newsroom landscape. While 90% feel their organizations excel in gender diversity, numbers drop for political (55%), disabilities (54%), and ethnic (52%) diversity. Further, 43% have a systematic strategy for diversifying talent acquisition, but systematic approaches are less common for retaining talent and reflecting diversity in stories produced.
Diverse talent acquisition remains a significant challenge, cited by 57% of respondents. Retaining diverse talent, prioritizing diversity, and understanding its value are additional hurdles. The report underscores the need for structured plans to address these challenges systematically.
This research provides a comprehensive snapshot of the evolving newsroom landscape: flexible work models, generative AI, and diversity initiatives present challenges and opportunities. As news organizations adapt to external forces, the report highlights the importance of flexibility, strategic planning and systematic approaches to foster an inclusive, innovative newsroom culture.
Founded in 1977, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education fosters diversity in newsrooms through improved coverage, hiring, and business practices. The organization offers newsroom training and professional development programs that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in journalism. In 2018, the organization launched the Maynard 200 Fellowship as a call to action for the industry. The program provides training and mentorship to mid-career journalists of diverse backgrounds in order to advance their career growth and ability to take on expanded leadership roles.
Director Odette Alcazaren-Keeley kicks off the 2023 Maynard 200 fellowship program.
To date, 146 fellows have completed the program. These diverse media leaders, storytellers, and entrepreneurs are not just equipped to lead within media organizations, or their own endeavors. They also form a community of support that grows every year, which is especially critical amid turbulence in the industry. Maynard 200 Fellows are part of what its director Odette Alcazaren-Keeley describes as “a mini-movement aligned with our mission of dismantling structural racism in America’s newsrooms and media spaces.”
Alcazaren-Keeley recently received the SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism “Unsung Hero” award, primarily for her work directing the program, which they cited as “as one of the most powerful incubators for journalists of color in the country.” Here, she discusses the state of newsroom equity, what’s changed – and what has not – and offers insight and advice for media leaders who want to support diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) in tangible ways.
—————————————————————————————
Describe the current state of diversity in newsrooms as you see it:
There has been progress but there is still so much work to be done to grow diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging [DEIB] in newsrooms. Three years after the Summer of George Floyd, many newsrooms still continue to struggle with racial equity.
Given economic uncertainties, many newsrooms find themselves at crossroads. News organizations can choose to continue to build on the momentum of the racial awakening of 2020. But the work is not easy. And as some newsrooms struggle with financial sustainability, they may be tempted to abandon efforts before reaping the benefits of this work. We’ve seen this reported in other industries. For example in tech, where DEIB roles saw high attrition rates – and even layoffs – earlier this year.
Of course there is reason to hope and we can point to metrics of progress. For example, the American Journalist Study of 2022 found that the number of full-time journalists of color increased from 10.8% in 2012 to 18% in 2022.
But again, this progress has been mixed as found by the Pew Research Center survey of almost 12,000 journalists last year. For example, journalists surveyed gave their news organizations highest marks for gender and age diversity – but the lowest for racial and ethnic diversity.
Our organization has been doing this work to help diversify the profession so that demographics of newsrooms better reflect the demographics of the U.S. for decades and the marathon continues. This is why we are so passionate about the successes of the Maynard 200 Fellowship program. We designed the program to train journalists of color and their allies. The program’s curriculum is both skills-based and centered on DEIB principles. The investigative reporters, editors, managers, executives, and media entrepreneurs who participate in the Maynard 200 Fellowship go on to become change agents in their organizations. And we can see that this is something the media industry clearly needs more of.
Are you and your fellows seeing change on the inclusion front?
Marla Jones-Newman, VP of People and Culture at Mother Jones, and a 2022 alum of the executive leaders track of the Maynard 200 Fellowship, recently wrote an insightful piece about the industry’s fluctuating commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Media advocates and journalism funders relay reports of DEIB leaders across newsrooms who share that they do not receive an authentic infrastructure of support and are not able to sustain their work. This has led them to fail their mission in shifting cultures of toxicity and racial inequity inside media organizations – the very reason for their roles.
It can often feel like two steps forward and one step back – or one step forward, two steps back depending on the backlash. When newsrooms are inconsistent with their commitment to DEIB, it can feel performative and actually hurt their reputations among audiences and employees.
[Disclosure: Mother Jones is one of the news organizations participating in the 2023 Maynard 200 Fellowship business case study challenge, where fellows are tasked with designing solutions to challenges faced by today’s media organizations.]
Many media organizations have pledged to improve their racial equity. Have they?
This work can be difficult to track – especially when previous efforts to survey the industry have faded out due to “crushing resistance” like the American Society of News Editors annual diversity survey which had been conducted since 1978. So few news organizations contribute data about their racial equity, that some industry leaders want to make diversity reporting a requirement to receive prestigious journalism awards, like the Open Letter to the Pulitzer Prizes published last year.
Again, we can point to some progress. But if news organizations want to thrive they must quicken their pace. The younger generation coming out of journalism schools today has higher expectations. To refer back to the Pew Research Center report again, the numbers that jump out the most come from younger respondents. For example, 68% of journalists ages 18 to 29 say there is not enough racial and ethnic diversity at their organization, compared with 37% of journalists 65 and older.
In some ways, the culture of society is changing faster than media organizational culture is changing. Younger generations in the U.S. are more diverse than previous generations, if media organizations want to recruit the next generation of journalists, they need to catch up.
What are the barriers that need to be addressed to improve equity in media organizations?
There are many, but the primary barrier to address is systemic racism. More than 50 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed a committee to investigate the rise in U.S. racial conflicts in the late 1960s. The outcome of that investigation, known as the Kerner Commission report, warned that: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” The report also stated the news media was “shockingly backward in seeking out, hiring and promoting” people of color.
In response, the news media claimed it was a “pipeline problem” in that they could not find qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds. In 1978 at a pivotal meeting of top brass in print, Bob Maynard declared it was time to remove this excuse from the equation. “We will not let you off the hook,” he said. “We must desegregate this business.”
This climate propelled our Institute’s namesake Robert C. Maynard to gather a diverse group of journalists and found the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education with the mission of promoting diversity and antiracism in the news media through improved coverage, hiring and business practices.
At an organizational level, media organizations must strive to create a culture of belonging for journalists and audiences of all backgrounds, rather than othering these groups in their workplaces and their coverage. To push DEIB principles forward – in addition to professional development training programs like the Maynard 200 Fellowship – the Maynard Institute also provides consultation and training to media organizations that address the structural inequities that persist in newsrooms. Using the Fault Lines® training methodology designed by Bob Maynard, the Maynard Institute helps newsrooms come to terms with bias along race, gender, sexual orientation, generation, geography and class lines as they apply to journalists, newsroom collaboration and coverage.
As you mentioned, we often hear about a “pipeline problem” and we’ve seen media organizations work with universities and other organizations to better recruit diverse candidates. Is this working? Is it enough?
Similar to other professions and industries – such as those in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) fields – the myth of the “pipeline problem” has been busted. There is no shortage of qualified candidates of diverse backgrounds. But until media organizations can adopt diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging principles as foundational to newsroom culture, progress will continue to be slower than we would like to see.
Looking at our metrics, we are proud that while there are many newsworthy journalism fellowships, the Maynard 200 Fellowship has consistently served the most diverse group of journalists in the industry. Year after year, the majority of fellows are Black, followed by AAPI, Latine, and mixed race. In addition, since the program began, the vast majority of fellows have identified as women.
Back in 2018, the Maynard Institute created its fellowship with the goal to provide training and professional support to advance the careers of 200 journalists. The Institute will soon exceed that goal in 2024. But the positive impact of the program is already visible, particularly for Black women who have advanced to executive positions in the industry since participating in Maynard 200. One of the things we think sets our program apart is this success at supporting Black leaders in the media. And as news organizations continue to diversify their leadership and c-suite, further success will be measured in the retention and advancement of diverse employees, who feel supported.
What do you see that is working or that has been effective in your program?
Some of the key components of the Maynard 200 Fellowship we find especially effective are the peer learning community model and the year-long, one-on-one mentorship. Because getting journalists of color hired isn’t the end of the journey. The industry must also establish communities of support and pathways to career advancement in order to ensure journalists of color don’t burnout or leave the industry altogether. For example, after Maynard 200 Fellows complete the training curriculum, they are paired with an industry professional who works in their subject area for a full year of mentorship.
What advice would you give to media leaders committed to change?
Remember that this work requires more than just issuing a press release or vision statement about the value of diversity. Organizations need to avoid performative lip-service that doesn’t have a real, tangible impact. DEIB principles must be embedded into organizational culture and business practices.
In order to achieve this, leaders have to acknowledge and leave behind old hallmarks of the profession that reinforced systemic inequity. For example, the myth that journalists must strive for strictly objective reporting is not only outdated, it is harmful. Since 2020, we’ve seen a call from industry thought leaders, educators and award-winning journalists like Wesley Lowery to abandon the myth of objectivity.
What would you like to say to today’s media leaders who are committed to dismantling structural racism?
Media leaders today must embrace the concept of belonging. In the 1980s, the most commonly used term for this work was “diversity.” Over the years additional concepts such as equity and inclusion have been integrated into professional settings. Most recently, the concept of belonging has emerged as vitally important. Belonging describes more than a feeling of inclusion or welcome.
Belonging means having a meaningful voice and the opportunity to participate in the design of political, social, and cultural structures that shape one’s life — the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political institutions.
At its core, structural belonging holds a radically inclusive vision because it requires mutual power, access, and opportunity among all groups and individuals within an organization.
Leaders must accept that culture change is hard and an ongoing process. Leaders must prepare and build in space for the emotional work associated with these issues to be truly successful. The news organizations with leadership who prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging make substantial progress. You can look at the success stories of newsrooms for payoffs.
For example Southern California Public Radio used the performance-driven change management tools to assess and track organizational progress on DEIB issues. An independently formed task force made 44 recommendations to leadership that were all accepted and implemented.
Also look to GBH – the largest producer of content for PBS and one of the public media organizations participating in the Maynard Institute’s Newsroom Transformation Program. They’ve invested heavily in weaving belonging into their organizational culture and business practices. For example, GBH has diversified their network of suppliers and transitioned unpaid internships to paid internships in order to create more equitable opportunities. Business practice changes like this can have a big impact. The first year they implemented paid internships, GBH saw a 12% increase in the diversity of their interns.
Our co-executive director of the Maynard Institute, Martin G. Reynolds often says, “News organizations need to learn to operationalize the concept of belonging.” This is very challenging work because it requires an individual and collective unwinding of internalized biases, perceptions, and business practices that have made some news organizations toxic places for so many, particularly people of color. This work must be aligned with a news organization’s business strategy.
What’s the payoff for media organizations that effectively improve the diversity of their teams?
We know that diversity in newsrooms has multiple positive outcomes. In addition to the ethical imperative, there is a strong business case. Having journalists from diverse backgrounds helps improve the quality, breadth and depth of coverage which then in turn, attracts and expands the audience. The term “payoff” says it all. The payoff of this work is long term growth and financial sustainability. A media organization cannot grow its audience and bottom line without doing this work.
For example, if a news organization is eager to reach younger consumers to ensure financial survival then it must implement an approach to diversifying story sources and coverage. Research commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University found that younger people have a strong interest in coverage that is clearly more diverse and inclusive. Plus, the Washington Post editor, Neema Roshania Patel has found that “Diversity in sourcing is key to reaching and retaining a younger, more diverse set of readers.”
Our Maynard 200 fellows embody a superpower that makes our mission of creating more institutions of belonging possible – courage. In their collective voice and impact, I see the collective power of journalism. And I know other media leaders out there can see it, feel it, and want to be part of it too.
Is our organization serving the right audiences to expand the reach and impact of our journalism? Are we fulfilling our social mission to inform the public and represent the variety of viewpoints of our society? Are we relying too heavily on one type of reader to sustain us financially in the future?
Those are some of the questions that dominated the discussions over the course of FT Strategies and Google News Initiative’s Audience Diversity Academy. In this inaugural six-month programme, six publishers across Europe came together to better understand and address the needs and behaviors of younger and women audiences. This article summarizes our approach and subsequent report, Seizing the diversity opportunity: enabling growth in the news business. Here, I will focus on strategic guidance, and you can read the full report for case studies, practical experiments and more.
For the skeptics out there, addressing such organizational and coverage disparities can lead to commercial upsides, among other things. Growing diverse audiences and ensuring a more diverse organization can help your company respond to changing consumer behaviors and economic headwinds. It can also help organizations proactively gain a foothold in the increasingly aggressive battle for talent.
So how can I seize the opportunity of audience diversity?
Our framework below was crucial to building an audience diversity strategy for the participants:
Start with a clear case and diversity goal, backed up by leadership
There are many aspects to consider when baking audience diversity into your strategy. However, a few influential leaders working with a group of highly engaged employees, who strongly identify with the mission, is a great place to start. This means ensuring enough traction at the top to prioritize audience diversity and communicate across the business, while the grassroots can generate practical ideas and excite colleagues. The publishers who moved ahead quicker are those who created a clear goal with hypotheses to test, measuring their progress with defined metrics.
Create regular, authentic mechanisms to listen to your audience and act on their feedback
Journalism is no longer a monologue; the more you invite the underrepresented segments to be part of a conversation, the more heard they feel and the better you understand their needs. Go beyond ad-hoc feedback such as with regular initiatives to collect qualitative and quantitative information such as interviews, surveys, newsroom tours, video calls, website analytics. Make sure you can include audience suggestions on the content and product in your strategic activities in order to create a more diverse proposition. At the FT we have an Audience Engagement team that advocates for high quality, diverse readers.
Sustain the effort to connect to an audience with content for them, experienced in ways that suit their needs
While it is important to avoid negative media stereotyping, underrepresented segments should have access to authentic, equitable and representative content. Having the data in the newsroom to track coverage across communities, how they engage with the stories and the amount of voices, images and sources included can shine light on the limitations of existing content and encourage more diverse commissioning decisions.
This partly lies with the newsroom. But marketing, product and data should work in cross-departmental teams to ensure there is a variety of tactics to acquire and retain audiences. For example, we found that women are often confined by time, so offering them alternative methods of consumption, such as audio or newsletters, strengthens their engagement with the product.
Reflect the society you serve in your organizational make-up–but look beyond hiring
It is challenging to create a diverse product without a diverse employee base to weave their ideas in stories, design, production and delivery. However, we found that publishers look at their employee data split by (e.g.) gender and tend to conclude they are 50:50. Certainly, you should recognize this achievement. However, it is also critical to examine how employees from minority groups feel at the workplace, how many progress upwards, and what their tenure is, in order to measure your ability to both acquire and empower talent. We experimented with a group of women writing on rotation a newsletter on topics that matter for women. The results showed better individual recognition and a higher uptake of the newsletter by women readers.
I want to note that we cannot reduce diversity to simply age and gender, and diversity is the first step in a long journey towards a more inclusive and equitable audience and organization. However, for the purpose of the programme, we focused on age and gender to make our efforts most impactful. We believe that the approach and the learnings are applicable to other diversity aspects.
Diversity is not simply about representation in the newsroom, or in the content we produce. It serves our readers by better reflecting society. And it serves our business by attracting a broad talent pool, and better meeting the expectations of our audiences.
About the author
Rumyana is a manager at FT Strategies, and has worked with large media & publishing companies across Europe. She led FT the Google News Initiative Audience diversity programme, and also has experience in content strategy and engagement tactics. She was recently part of the Financial Times’ Audience Engagement team supporting their audience diversity initiatives. Prior to joining the FT, Rumyana was a consultant at KPMG.
The Association of Online Publishers’ (AOP) new report, Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities 2023, offers insight into this year’s top priorities for media companies – which unsurprisingly featured revenue growth. Publishers are also focused on talent and building a diverse and inclusive workplace.
As digital media companies look to grow their businesses, they assess internal strategies and external macroeconomic and legislative influences. Both publishers and solutions providers report being well-positioned for the year ahead and rate their confidence level a 7.2 based on a 10-point rating scale.
The AOP surveyed 92 digital publishers and 16 solution providers; 26% of respondents are at the board level in their organization, and 51% are heads of departments.
Internal business priorities
Revenue remains a top priority for publishers. Subscriptions (17%), sponsorships (15%), and lead generation (13%) rank as top revenue sources for growth among consumer-based publishers. B2B publishers see stronger growth opportunities in lead generation (28%), events (22%), and sponsorship (20%). Digital publishers targeting business and consumer audiences rank developing new revenue streams through product innovation as their highest priority (3.9).
Developing new audiences is important for revenue growth. To that end, consumer publishers work across multiple platforms to drive content discovery while B2B publishers are more reliant on LinkedIn (44%).
For advertising, publishers targeting consumer audiences report they depend more on advertising deals in the open marketplace. In contrast, B2B publishers divide more evenly across open and private marketplaces and non-programmatic. Further, 44% of all publishers expect revenue growth from private marketplaces and 42% from non-programmatic revenues.
Publisher respondents appear to be highly focused on their employees. Asked to rate how important different organizational priorities are [where 0 is not a focus at all and 5 is a very strong focus], B2B publishers ranked recruiting and retaining new talent as the most important priority, with a score of 4.1. Consumer publishers ranked ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace as the most important priority, at 3.9.
External factors
With new legislation a key focus, digital media companies are mildly confident of their knowledge of the UK’s Online Safety Bill. This legislation establishes a new regulatory framework to ensure tech companies protect users from illegal content and activity, specifically social platforms, and other user-generated content-based sites. Publishers rate their confidence in understanding the Online Safety Bill’s impact on their organization at 5.6 on a 10-point scale and solution providers at 5.3.
Some publishers report that their companies are preparing for this new law by consulting with their legal teams, providing a comprehensive editorial policy, and relying on browser options. However, many also reply that no actions are needed because quality content publishers do not target children.
Further, publishers’ confidence rating is 6.5 regarding their readiness for the end of third-party cookies, while solutions providers report lower confidence in readiness (4.8). Publishers prioritize their investment in first-party data and user experience in preparing for the end of cookies:
Enhancing the engagement funnel to build better first-party data (23%);
Implementing tech solutions to provide a 360-degree view of audiences (15%); and
Investing in solutions to deliver a more personalized user experience (15%).
With a strong focus on first-party data, 58% of publishers are working to ensure their audience informs their business decisions and their investment in a data-led organization. Another 21% highlight the importance of internally managing and communicating audience insights throughout their organizations.
The AOP provides a snapshot of important focus areas for the year. A strong confidence level among media companies reflects positive internal alignment on essential strategies to develop and grow their businesses further. They are focused on building a diverse and strong talent pool. In terms of strategy, they are taking an audience-focused strategy and look to diversify revenue growth beyond advertising sales and subscriptions and increase sponsorships, lead generation, and event revenues.
As we approach the end of 2022, it’s never too early to plan promotions and set an end-of-year calendar for your organization.
These initiatives often require buy-in from the whole company. While editorial and marketing teams often lead the effort, product, technology, ad sales and senior leaders all play important roles. That’s especially true when an organization is shifting from an advertising-first strategy, focused on pageviews and engagement, to a user-centered strategy. The entire team will need to be aligned on KPIs and work together to execute the digital subscription strategy.
Key roles for successful subscription marketing
The most successful subscription publishers have dedicated resources for their digital subscription business that allow them to market their offerings nimbly, and continuously optimize their efforts. For those building or growing their teams, the following roles are foundational for success:
Head of consumer revenue
A senior revenue leader directly influences the future of the company and its business model, focusing on sales and everything that drives them, like marketing campaigns and product pricing.
This individual sets group goals and KPIs and typically is not executing day-to-day efforts, but does ensure campaigns are focused on the proper channels and customers, using the most impactful messaging. The head of consumer revenue usually has product knowledge and understands what makes the product unique and valuable to users in order to monetize it.
Marketing manager
A marketing manager is typically the person who oversees day-to-day marketing campaigns.
They possess experience identifying target audiences and executing campaigns that target, engage, and convert users throughout the customer journey.
This person should have a background in digital marketing or audience engagement to be most successful at understanding the audience and how to serve them with the right message at the right time in the most impactful way. Their goals are to enhance sales and remind existing users of their benefits. Subscriptions aren’t a set-it-and-forget-it business, so the marketing manager is also important for testing different aspects of the user experience to constantly be iterating and improving campaigns.
Creative team
Every publisher needs a resource with a creative mindset to help provide a frictionless UX while adhering to company brand guidelines. In many organizations, copy comes from the marketing manager and then designers ensure the look, feel and messaging of the campaign are aligned.
When design and copy are complete, a front-end developer may build templates to use with the software that’s serving promotions. Developers are often shared resources, so we always recommend creating templates with content fields whenever possible so that others on the marketing team can create variations—updating messaging, changing headlines, moving forward with new tests or promotions, etc.—without that technical background.
Data team
It’s helpful to have data analysts working closely across functions to help marketers understand what audience segments they are looking at and what information they have about them. Based on this performance, data experts can then help enhance segmentation and build out additional campaigns. They can answer questions like, where are the low-hanging fruit? Where can you drive business? How are campaigns performing among specific audience segments? Where is there an opportunity to iterate and improve results?
As a subscription business grows, the data team ultimately plays a critical role in benchmarking KPIs like cost of acquisition, customer lifetime value, retention rates and more. More sophisticated data scientists can also provide attribution models, revenue forecasting, or even come up with creative algorithms to segment your audience.
Tech team
Although they might not be needed on a daily basis, having a technical team that can support your business is very important. This group is aware and understands the technical objectives and gains knowledge of systems and processes, learning how relevant data is leveraged throughout the organization. They can also make sure integrations are functional and that data is passed correctly between systems, which is important for making strategic recommendations around price, revenue, etc.
If there’s a single most important factor in successfully marketing a subscription program, it’s having a top leader in the newsroom and someone on the business side engaged and in agreement that subscriptions are the priority. The group can build a marketing team to be responsible for executing this strategy.
How trials & promotions can help
Depending on how complex your organization’s audience segmentation is, trials and promotions can be worthwhile for all segments if they’re well-planned and used appropriately. How can you plan now to offer the right trials and promotions in the coming months?
Trials are a way to offer sampling; in other words, trying the product before a user makes a long-term and possibly expensive commitment. In subscription, these can have a big impact on conversion rate: At Piano, we’ve seen between a 20% and 150% lift in conversions after users enter a trial period.
However, free trials on annual subscriptions are not recommended. These typically result in very low retention rates and negate much of the benefit of offering a trial in the first place. One exception is to offer introductory pricing for annual subscribers. This can be an effective way to incentivise choosing a longer subscription.
Nonetheless, promotions are a way to encourage conversion among users who might otherwise consider a product too expensive, or who previously passed on an offer to subscribe. Through pricing research, you should be able to map out a revenue curve that helps you understand what different user segments might be willing to pay and how that impacts your overall revenue projections.
Running promotions creates a sense of urgency and pushes users to convert: At Piano, we’ve seen a 64% lift in revenue during a month with promotional offers, relative to the month prior. But the key is making these promotions targeted, temporary and irregular. Keep the offers in the market for a week or two at most, allowing the most motivated, price-sensitive users to respond.
The right team will help guide you on the effectiveness and performance of trials and promotions. With strong leadership, there’s still time to put in place a strong subscription marketing plan for the rest of the year and beyond.
DCN’s editorial director Michelle Manafy interviews Nicole Carroll, the Editor-in-chief of USA Today and Aja Whitaker-Moore the Executive Editor of Axioson Newsroom innovation: What’s the future of storytelling at the Collision conference, which was held in Toronto, Canada June 22-24, 2022.
[Full transcript below.]
WATCH/LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Michelle Manafy
I’m back! But I’m in good company. I’ve got some terrific speakers here joining me to talk about newsroom innovation. If we could, I feel like the topic is just huge. If maybe you’d like to kick us off with what the heck does it even mean?
Nicole Carroll
You know, I think innovation now, in the olden days, it was always tech and what’s the next product? And what’s the next thing? And I think now honestly, it’s about engagement is like how do we truly authentically engage with our audiences. And that could be tech that could be in person storytelling, that could be, you know, lots of different ways. I also think innovation always is just about to keep moving forward, you know, every generation of journalists is going to do it a little bit differently. And I think we’ve got to find our way. So, I think about innovation, not just in a technology sense, but literally everything we do in hiring, and how do we fund our journalism? How do we connect with our audiences? We’ve got to keep moving forward.
Michelle Manafy
Aja, anything you want to add to that?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
No, I mean, I think you’ve covered a lot of it. And from the actors perspective, you know, we’re a startup. And so everything that we do is kind of innovative, in our opinion. And we were born of, you know, we thought a problem, which was, there’s too much information, and people don’t know how to keep up with it, they don’t know how to access it. And, you know, we think that our promise is innovative in the sense that we came up with a new format, came up with a new delivery mechanism, and are coming up with new ways to reach an audience on an everyday basis. So that’s our version of innovative, I think.
Michelle Manafy
So let’s go back to Axios then for a second. How do product and editorial work together in your organization, and how do you drive innovation in that relationship?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, I mean, pretty closely, because, you know, like I said, you know, we are focused on smart brevity and packaging things in a way that people want to digest them. And that means that we’re mobile first. And that means that everything we do has to be looked at from a product perspective, how are we delivering lists in a mobile friendly format? How is our app working? How are we delivering products to people, you know, in the way that they want them. So we work really closely together with a product team that I think understands journalism and understands news in a way that is really important.
Michelle Manafy
I mean: easy for you to say, “built from the ground up.” But let’s talk about USA Today. Like, is there a tight integration of product and editorial, editorial, huge,
Nicole Carroll
we’re, you know, we’re one of the OG startups, but we were actually smart, brevity 40 years ago, and we’re pretty, you know, made fun of because of that. So I’m you know, I’m glad to see the world has, you know, come around to that you can get good information in smaller amounts of words or video. So I, I’m really proud of the work we’ve done. But yes, we are really tight with our product teams, the fact that we just want to call with them this morning. You know, we’re constantly looking at not here’s what we should do. But what is the outcome you’re looking for? And then working together? How do we get to that outcome? We try not to go into it with the solution you go into it with what’s the outcome you’re looking for, and what do we need to bring to that equation?
Michelle Manafy
So one of the things you touched on in like your “what is innovation” was: staffing, diversity, leadership, those those issues… Can you tell me a little bit — let’s start with USA Today — about how you’re approaching leadership and recruiting with an eye to fostering innovation to fueling it.
Nicole Carroll
It’s never been more important to recruiting and what we’re doing right now. And I don’t know if how many of you are in the industry. But there’s the great journalism shuffle going on right now. I mean, everybody is moving somewhere else. Right now, there’s a real fight for talent and leadership. And I think people want to be part of authentic companies, who are really trying to again, I always say our job is to spread truth, you know, to engage with our audiences. And so showing a path having mentorship programs showing an opportunity for leadership, showing industry leadership is really important to creating the culture that will keep people in our organization. We’ve made the pledge at Guenette, that we want our newsrooms to reflect our communities by 2025. And we measure ourselves every year against that benchmark around racial diversity. I measure it every quarter at USA Today and report that to the staff. I think it’s really important we hold a mirror up to ourselves and be really honest about how we’re doing.
Michelle Manafy
How about Axios? What what what is the approach? How are you thinking about like, what is this newsroom? What is the staffing what does the leadership mean, to our ability to be innovative?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, I mean, I think we we agree at that at the start the diversity of our newsroom should reflect the diversity of our audience. And that will then you know, result in diversity of coverage and that’s really what we’re striving towards. You know, our founders are committed to that goal as well. You know, in the fall, we’re releasing a smart brevity book. And they dedicated the proceeds the advance from that book to fund a fellowship program that we’re really proud of where we’re focusing on hiring from diverse communities in underrepresented backgrounds, to mentor them into Axios. And focusing on developing a beat developing the next generation of leaders that we think is, you know, missing from journalism right now. And it’s something that is a part of, you know, our newsroom recruiting our newsroom leadership. Axios is led by two women of color. And myself, and our editor in chief, Sara Gu. And it’s something that we you know, walk, talk, live, breathe and think, is the future of innovation at our company and everywhere, so we’re really focused on it.
Michelle Manafy
Alright, so let’s shift gears a little bit. We there’s been a kerfluffle, of late around the social presence of journalists online, rather spectacular, blow up, in fact, quite visibly on social media. For for Axios, let’s start there. How are you balancing the desire for reporters to have a social presence to leverage that social presence? With your standards?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, and when I think we’re, we’re not like, any, you know, we’re similar to every other media organization out there, that’s figuring out, you know, how to balance that, but we’ve been really proud of our track record so far, you know, in the past five years, you know, we we’ve really just said to our staff, we trust you. You arer adults. Represent yourselves represent Axios the way that you, you know, would expect to in public. And that’s actually what’s happened. So I think we are, you know, proud of how we’ve done it so far. And we’ll continue to act accordingly on social platforms, and still be able to share our journalism with the world engage with people in a responsible way. And I think we’re all doing that.
Nicole Carroll
I know that at USA Today, the social presence is a big part of the work. So how are you setting your standards and communicating to your staff that this is important? But you still have to represent our brand.
Right? I mean, we know that, you know, our integrity and our fairness. And all of that is just the bedrock of what we are. And so we want to make sure that we represent our way ourselves that way. On social, we tell people, we want you to bring your authentic selves, we want you to bring your lived experiences. But obviously, we can’t slip into advocacy. And I say this all the time: The power you have as journalists, to choose stories to tell stories to spread stories, is so much more power than you’re going to have in that tweet. And so you know, again: Bring your true selves, bring your authentic selves, but but let’s not tip into advocacy that could harm the integrity of our brand.
Michelle Manafy
So I think another issue digitally in particular is the 24 hour news cycle, right? We’re all facing this kind of pressure to constantly be online, constantly be informing our our consumers. But how are you balancing the 24 hour news cycle with your again, with your standards and your goal to provide actual, trustworthy news?
Nicole Carroll
Well, we’re really lucky and that we’re spread across the country from, you know, Washington all the way to LA. And then we also have a London bureau. So, we really are on 24/7, which, which makes things a little bit easier. But you know, I tell people 100 times out of 100, I’d rather be second than wrong. 100 times out of 100. So if you’re ever in doubt, don’t do it. Double check it triple check it, I’m going to be fine. If we’re last as long as we’re right.
Michelle Manafy
I see a lot of scoops and exclusives at Axios. So how about you? Is there a difference there? Is there pressure?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, Imean, I think that our philosophy is a little bit different. We’re not there to deliver you every piece of news. We’re there to deliver you what you need to know, and the things that are important. And so I think that our model is a little bit different in that we package our version of the 24 news cycle into a newsletter suite. So if you’re getting Mike Allen’s AM, and PM and Finish Line newsletters, that’s what we call our daily essentials. And he’s set a really diverse kind of breakfast table for you in the morning. Happy Hour, four in the evening. And he’s telling you the stories that you need to know and so we’re curating that and packaging that I think in a different way than you know, a news wire or or a news organization that’s giving you breaking news 24/7.
Michelle Manafy
It’s interesting. We used to call those “newspapers” where we curated what you need to know i the course of a day. I do think it’s interesting. The last panel was very much touching on this deluge; this fire hose, and how we can discern. And of course you know, I advocate for trustworthy sources like y’all.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Manafy
All right. So, innovation in delivery and formats. I know you specifically mentioned Axios being mobile first. And I think that’s for a little while there that was almost a cliche industry. But I think it’s, it’s a given, is it not? Are you thinking a lot about innovating in terms of say, Tik Tok? Let’s just throw out like, are you looking at new formats?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Tick Tok? Not so much. Not yet. I mean, we have experimented, I think on all the platforms, you know, we do Twitter spaces, we do curated videos on You know, on Instagram, I think Tik Tok is an amazing platform. And a lot of I think publishers have figured out a great way to do it. But I think it actually is we, you know, right now, you know, we really are interested in podcasts, we’ve found a way to tell long form stories in smart brevity, through audio, which, you know, is is challenging, but we’ve done it with our How it Happened podcast series. It’s got, you know, 3 million downloads, and it’s really resonating with the audience. And we also have, you know, a daily podcast that we think is, you know, really innovative and how we’re telling stories in, you know, 10 minutes a day, and our audience is telling us, you know, they can’t get enough of it. So, I think that’s definitely interesting to us. You know, we just hired our first SEO editor and we’re really focused on you know, packaging our stories for social and, you know, making sure we’re we’re meeting people where they are.
Michelle Manafy
I know that social audio has been really good for you guys too. How about USA Today. What do you do?
Nicole Carroll
Well, it’s funny: I was just checking or TikTok I think we’re just checking to see how many followers I think we’re over a million somebody check me so we’re over a million and when we you know, I love it. My son’s 16 He gets all his news on Tik Tok. So whenever we show up in his feed, he’s really proud. He’s like, there’s my mom. So I mean, we’re gonna be in the spaces where people are, we’re doing Twitter Spaces, we were on Clubhouse, we were doing all the things. Really, it’s because we just want people to know that we’re there with the information they need, again, whether it’s Instagram, or Tik Tok, or a newsletter, or a podcast. And it just helps the overall reach and hopefully, you know, to your point about trust and media, if they see us enough, if they see that we’re right enough, if they see that we’re responsible enough, I want to develop that trust. And so I think it’s not just about the audience. It’s about developing that relationship and trust and like, Oh, I’ve seen you three or four times now. You know, I I know your real I know, you’re a trustworthy news source. And that’s really important to me.
Michelle Manafy
Yeah and that’s interesting, because you both mentioned, you know, being where they are.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah.
Michelle Manafy
But then your values like perpetuated values and your ethos there to build that trusted relationship.
Nicole Carroll
Well, it’s funny when the last join some of the January 6, and we made some decisions about, you know, we didn’t errors, certain of Donald Trump’s speeches, because I did, they were misinformation, and we chose not to air them live. We would go back and we would package them so we could fact check them before we did it. I actually went on Tik Tok. And I told people why we were doing that. And I did a video like: Hey, here’s we may be hearing about this. And this is why we’re doing that we think it’s important to fact check before we put information out there. So it was kind of fun to be able to talk directly to that audience
Michelle Manafy
Addressing that that demand for immediacy. Head on,
Nicole Carroll
Right, exactly.
Michelle Manafy
We want it now. But here’s why we’re not.
Why don’t you tell me each of you just very quickly, a project or product that you’ve done recently that you feel is particularly innovative?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Sure. I mean, I think Axios local is probably our biggest project of the year. And, you know, talking about rebuilding trust, we want to meet people in their communities, and talk to them about the economic situation where they live, the lifestyle opportunities, where they live, also, the political landscapes where they live. So we’ve stood up in 17 cities, and we’re going to be in, I think, another 25 by the end of this year. So, we’re really proud of that expansion and trying to recapture some of what’s been lost in the local news landscape. And, you know, it’s really resonating with audiences, we’ve had over a million subscribers in those local markets, generated, you know, 5 million in revenue last year from loca. And so we think that’s, you know, a really big part of the future of Axios. And hopefully the future of restoring trust and journalism in America.
Michelle Manafy
No small feat.
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, just a little, just a little project.
Michelle Manafy
Just a Tuesday. How about at USA Today?
Nicole Carroll
Sure. Well, I really hope you guys will check out some of the AR we’ve been doing. And again, this leans more into the tech, but it’s really cool tech. So you can we did a series this past year on 1961 and the importance of what happened in 1961, around voting rights to what’s happening today. And our AR team built this amazing experience where you could actually ride the bus as it was being attacked by rioters and you can hear the story and you can you can you can hear we brought in historical video and audio. And you really feel like you can see the flames around you and you are really immersed in that experience. So, you know, again, we’re trying to bring the truth to people and help them understand news that empathy that you get from immersive storytelling is really important. Not just reading it; you’re experiencing it. So really proud of some of the work we’ve done on AR.
Michelle Manafy
That’s a great example. Just before we’re done here: How about something that you think that everyone is talking about in media right now, that maybe is hype or that maybe you’re a little skeptical about?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Just in general?
Michelle Manafy
In the digital media industry. Hype cycle?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I don’t know,
Michelle Manafy
Alright, we can do NFTs? [laughter]
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Well, we do have a newsletter that covers crypto and I think we do talk about that, you know, quite a bit. And NFTs have their place in the crypto world.
Unknown Speaker 15:48
Oh ho ho. No, it doesn’t have to be NF T’s. Metaverse can do another one. You guys bullish?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I mean, I think the Metaverse is interesting. If you think about it from the standpoint of like, we’re just building it now. You know, we don’t actually know what it’s going to be.
Michelle Manafy
Is it going to be the Facebook-averse. Is that? Or is it going to be an open platform?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I guess it depends on who you ask.
Michelle Manafy
We’re not going to ask Mark. Apparently, he didn’t want to talk to us about this.
Nicole Carroll
Which is weird. So weird. I mean, I think we just have to keep moving forward. Like I said at the beginning in all these spaces, and here’s the cool thing, we get to invent them, right? We get to say what they’re gonna be. So that’s awesome. We’re like, you know, I know, there’s a lot of stress in media right now. But I’m really excited about where we’re at right now in media, we’re, we get to invent the future. And that’s pretty cool.
Michelle Manafy
All right. The very last thing: leadership, like if you are looking out into the industry, and you want to just impart one piece of wisdom about leading an innovative team, no pressure. Aja: pressure.
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I mean, I think it’s really just about having a culture of activation and being able to experiment with an idea and nurture it from experiment, you know, to fruition. I think we do that, you know, every day at Axios. And really, every day in media. Every day, we’re writing a story. It’s like, you know, where’s this going to take us at? Where’s this gonna go? And just continuing, you know, to do that?
Michelle Manafy
I love that.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah. I think it’s all about the people. No matter what you do, you’ve got to create the culture. You’ve got to believe in people you’ve got to have, I think I call realistic optimism. We are in a tough world. But you realistically have to think “we can do these things.” And you have to impart that to people. You have to have a culture of “yes, let’s try it.” What can you do? What can you do in a month? What can you do in two months? We have to keep moving forward.
Michelle Manafy
Love it. Well, thank you both. I sincerely appreciate this. It was a great conversation and went to fast.
Anita Zielina founded the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership at CUNY in 2019. Since that time, she has shaped the leadership skills of executives from local media, start-ups and major outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, and ProPublica.
“I just built the program that I wish I had a bit earlier in my career,” explains Zielina. Like so many in our industry, she says “I started out as a journalist and I never had the management training, the product training,” she says. “I never learned how to speak the language of the business and strategy side of things.”
An Executive MBA at INSEAD, addressed some of those needs, but “there was not one other person from media in my class,” Zielina observes. In a cohort of 120 people, all of her peers were from consumer brands, oil and gas consultancies, banks, and the like. Nonetheless, she says, “I loved the experience.” But she could see that there was a need for such a program tailored to the media industry.
Zielina has set out to fill this need at CUNY. She built a program offering elements of a traditional MBA – with classes on strategy and organizational change – alongside a “comprehensive leadership growth development program,” and a focus on media best practices.
Anita Zielina
In a wide-ranging interview, Zielina – who is returning to Austria to launch her own consultancy focused on digital and leadership transformation – shared her views on the key challenges facing the news and media industries.
Here are five of the core elements that emerged from our conversation, with a focus on supporting future leaders – and the challenges facing them – in the media industry:
1. Training the next generation of leaders
Zielina has extensive leadership experience in media including stints as Chief Product Officer & Editor-in-Chief Digital at the Swiss-based NZZ, Digital Editor and Deputy Editor-In-Chief at Stern the German current affairs magazine, and as an Editor at the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. Looking back at previous roles she says, “I think I did a decent job. But I had to teach myself a lot of the skills you need as a leader.”
Those skills include an ability to navigate the intersections of business product, audience, editorial, technology and innovation. They are not necessarily acquired in the newsroom, she suggests, and the media context is often missing from traditional business programs.
“Our industry has a tradition of people rising to leadership roles,” she says. “They were great journalists. Then suddenly they become managers, and they do not get the support that they need.”
The need for this type of support is clear when looking at the graduates from CUNY’s executive programs. “Half of the people in that cohort that just graduated have taken on a larger role throughout the year or immediately after the program,” Zielina told us, “either in their own organization or in a different organization.” The training CUNY provided has been crucial to enabling them to effectively step into these leadership roles.
2. Strategic vision and execution
“There are some similarities in organizations whether they are large or small,” Zielina says when asked to share the biggest challenges for participants in the CUNY’s Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership. “Number one is strategy.”
Shortcomings in communication, as well as the need for strategy to continually evolve and be updated, are key factors. Even when strategy exists, she says “it’s not clearly communicated. In other cases, the strategy “is old, it’s faulty, it needs to be adapted to new challenges.”
To address this, Zielina encourages leaders to think about whether their organization is prepared for transformation. They must focus on which audiences they want or need to reach, and how to ensure that appropriate resources are prioritized. Integral to this is a “talent pipeline” as well as clarity about the type of work culture you want to instill.
“The difference between an organization that successfully manages transformation, and an organization that doesn’t, is not necessarily that one has a strategy paper or slide deck while the other does not.”
At the heart of this are leader who can turn strategy “into products, into audience work, into services, into organizational structures, and the daily execution routine.”
3. Detoxifying the workplace
Implementation is about more than just the products you build, and the platforms you use, Zielina reminds us. People, ethics, and culture must not be overlooked.
The workplace is an area in which she believes change is long overdue. If not, then talented people will leave. For good. In fact, Zielina says, many are already gone.
She notes a generational shift whereby Millennials and Gen Z “are not willing to put up with the not-so-great culture and ethics anymore.” “They are opting out,” she says. Unfortunately, “these people are never going to come back if we lose them now.”
According to Zielina, the size of this issue is one that too few industry leaders grasp, although she believes the trend is “becoming more obvious.”
“Younger colleagues in this industry, are waking up to the fact that they don’t have to stay in places that are toxic. They don’t have to stay in places that don’t let them have impact.”
“I think it’s the big the big issue that we’ll have to tackle the next few years,” she says.
4. Making DEI commitments a reality
“A lot of tensions obviously revolve around women, people of color, [and people] from different socio-economic backgrounds, finally saying, ‘I want a seat at the table. And if I don’t get a seat at the table, I’m going to leave.’ So really prioritizing DEI is so crucial.”
Zielina feels that “there was a certain reckoning after the murder of George Floyd and we see movement there.” However, many organizations are failing to deliver on their DEI promises.
Too often, she says, we hear companies say “yes, we are prioritizing, but it was so hard to find a woman and it was so hard to find that person of color. So we took another white man, but next time, we’re definitely gonna do it.”
“If we don’t tackle the big underlying cultural issues of this industry, if we don’t make this industry more attractive, if we don’t make this industry more equitable, if we don’t make this industry a healthier, better and more supportive space, we are going to lose all those people,” she adds.
5. Updating outdated modes of human capital
Making the industry more attractive, Zielina suggests, includes learning from the creator economy and the great resignation.
“More folks are realizing maybe I don’t want [to work for] an employer, maybe I want to do my own thing. But I don’t want it to be a kind of hockey stick startup with venture capital, I just wanted to work for me. I want to tell my stories. I want to serve my audience, who I care about.”
“We are going to see more of that,” she says, which means rethinking collaboration and working with creative/journalistic talent. She also believes we will see increased emphasis on impact, flexibility, and hybrid work – issues that matter to growing numbers of the workforce.
“There is a huge disconnect between the corporate world, and specifically corporate HR and applicants and employees,” she cautions. “And this disconnect is getting bigger.”
“You can start that tomorrow,” she says, urging organizations to ask “whether our incentive systems, our HR processes, our way of work is still adequate for this day and age.”
Future plans
After she leaves CUNY, Zielina plans to continue to focus on ensuring organizations have the structures, skills and talents they need, “in the space of digital leadership and product.”
Zielina sees signs that a famously myopic industry is starting to look beyond national markets for solutions. “It makes me optimistic that it seems that we are getting a bit more global and a bit more international as an industry,” she says.
“Those best practices are really starting to be shared across borders, and that that I think is an a fantastic development. We need more of that,” Zielina adds, “and I hope to play a part in that in at least bridging that gap between the U.S. and Western Europe.”
