“As digital media has evolved, there has been a transition of power to the audience. It’s this audience that we want to satisfy and get them to pay for our journalism,” said Jens Pettersson, Head of Editorial Development, at WAN-IFRA’s recent World News Media Congress in Copenhagen.  And so, the company decided to pivot its digital strategy. After hitting a growth plateau in 2020, they set a timeline of three years. The initial target was to acquire 55,000 paying users in the first year and double it to 110,000 by 2023.  Although they fell short with 102,113 subscriptions, by March 2 ..read more

This story was first published by Press Gazette, written by Charlotte Tobitt. It is republished here with permission. Mediahuis chief executive Gert Ysebaert told the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Copenhagen that this goal, set last year, is now the company’s “North Star”. They are calling it the 7-7-7 strategy: “to go from 70/30 to 30/70 in seven years. And if we are there by 2030 then we can say that we are a digitally sustainable company.” Mediahuis currently has more than 30 newsbrands in Belgium, the Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ire ..read more

Relevo, a Spanish sports news website, known for its innovative mobile home page that emulates the look and feel of TikTok or Instagram’s reels, was launched in October 2022. Though it aims to build a cross-over audience of sports fans, it is focused on Gen Z and Millennials, who feel disengaged or disillusioned with traditional sports coverage. To make the most of the innovative interface and measure success, the newsroom introduced a new ad-hoc metric and AI-supported software coding. This improved the homepage engagement by a third in just two months. The project also proved that non-coders ..read more

This story was first published by Press Gazette, written by Charlotte Tobitt. It is republished here with permission. It is “incumbent” on OpenAI to make sure smaller publishers get the same potential benefits from platforms like ChatGPT as large dominant names, its chief of intellectual property and content has said. Tom Rubin also clarified a common misconception about the partnerships being signed between OpenAI and news publishers: they are “largely not” about training but are instead focused on the display of news content and use of the tools and tech. Rubin was s ..read more

“I am honored to be here and to receive this award. Thank you, Women in News, and thank you, WAN IFRA. This recognition will mark my career. I would’ve loved to speak to you today about the gender balance we have proudly achieved at AJ+. I won’t be speaking about AI, though. I have a personal issue with it. I spent a lifetime learning languages, and there comes AI switching between languages like water! I won’t speak about any of that because these are dark times for journalism and humanity.  For the past 8 months, our daily life has been all about news of death and destruction. Our colle ..read more

What makes a story newsworthy? At World News Media Congress 2024 in Copenhagen, 12 delegates spent a day with 70 students from International People’s College to answer the question. In a workshop they examined the student’s media preferences and shared perspectives across generations as a baseline to revise the traditional news values. Some were preserved, while others were renewed to a list of seven: Educational – show us news that helps us learn and understand more about relevant topics Empowering – show us news that encourages us and provides tools to take action based on informe ..read more

The New York Times, which now has more than 10.5 million subscribers, has found there is a strong symbiotic relationship between products, such as their popular games, and news, Withrow told participants during WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in Copenhagen. Withrow spoke as part of a panel session on to news products that improve user experience, drive conversions and build loyalty. “The news cycle goes up and down, and what we’re seeing is the path from news to games is very well trodden. If there’s not a lot of news that day, we’re still seeing people coming back to play Wordle or Conne ..read more

“The entries received are being evaluated, and the judging process will start in the second half of June,” said Prabhu Natrajan, Research Engineer at WAN-IFRA. Measuring quality and performance The evaluation is carried out by a panel of experts who assess the visual print quality from the reader’s perspective. The assessment covers general printing quality, including printed colour accuracy, image sharpness, contrast, and colour registration. The contest evaluates printed newspaper/magazine products based on a set of ISO standards (ISO 12647-3 and ISO 2846-2). These standards are measured on ..read more

Often lost in the constant deluge of AI announcements is the actual experimentation, implementation and innovation that news publishers are doing with the help of the technology. The report’s case studies delve into examples of how these respective publishers have identified a specific need or area where AI can help. Many cases detail the learning curve of working with generative AI – the challenges and opportunities. “Some of the randomness of the cases featured here is for good reason: to show how publishers of all sizes and at different stages of their AI journeys are finding ways to benefi ..read more

For the Daily Maverick, “active” refers to people whose money is actually coming in today, Fran Beighton, General Manager of Reader Revenue and Grant Funding, Daily Maverick, South Africa told participants at WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in Copenhagen. “Something that has been surprising is that in the past two-and-a-half years we’ve had a 75 percent growth in our membership,” Beighton added. After all, this growth is coming several years after the Maverick Insider initiative launched and at a time when conventional business wisdom would have suggested it should have been plateauing, s ..read more