The decline in advertising revenue was one of the major factors leading to the closure of many local newsrooms. Although the media industry is yet to find a sustainable model for financing local journalism in the digital age, a number of new initiatives suggest that adopting a new business model can help solve some of the challenges.
Speaking at newsrewired on 7 November, panellists discussed how they are experimenting with different business models, testing out memberships, audience engagement strategies and community building projects.
1. Membership and cooperative model
Since being rolled out three years ago, the Guardian’s membership scheme has become one of the most oft-cited models amongst major publishers in the UK and internationally. As newsrooms debate whether they need to follow suit, if the Guardian’s lessons in memberships are anything to go by, it can certainly help to get loyal readers to reach into their pockets and back their journalistic cause.
However, new media startups have shown creativity in this field too and are starting to rethink how to implement a membership business model. Look at how Swiss media start-up Republik is turning paying members into shareholders and has collected 7.7 million CHF (£5.8 million) from mostly memberships in a recent crowdfunding campaign.
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Co-creator of News With Friends joins newsrewired as a speaker
Matt McAlister, co-creator of a social app that wants to fill the space left by Facebook deprioritising news content in its News Feed, will be joining panel on new social media strategies for content sharing.
After being heavily criticised for its role in spreading ‘fake news’, Facebook announced a considerable change to its algorithm this year, which will affect the posts that audiences scroll past on their News Feed.
Newsrewired workshop: how to cultivate thriving online communities through social stories
We are pleased to announce that Hannah Ray, head of social strategy and storytelling at Vogue International, will be leading a workshop at our upcoming newsrewired conference on 7 November 2018 at Reuters, London.
Can AI replace editors in the newsrooms?
“When you think about a creative process of selecting an image to match a story, it’s a much harder problem to try to solve with computers,” said Getty Images senior vice president of data and insights Andrew Hamilton in an interview with journalism.co.uk
But having developed an artificial intelligence-powered picture editor that chooses the right imagery for your story after “reading” your article — just as a human picture editor would — is it time to give robots a place in your newsroom?
Speakers from BBC Africa and Press Association are joining newsrewired
With only seven weeks to go until the next newsrewired event, we are pleased to announce three new speakers joining our panels.
Harriet Oliver and Julie Taylor are joint editors of a recently-launched BBC news programme for children in Africa, What’s New. Aimed at 11-16 year olds, the informative and entertaining show also gives young people the chance to tell their own stories.
New speaker announcement: Amanda Michel, deputy membership editor, the Guardian
More people are paying for Guardian journalism than ever before.
The Guardian has grown from 15,000 members in January 2016 to over 570,000 regular paying supporters, members and subscribers in June 2018. It also received an additional 375,000 one-off contributions globally in the past 12 months.
We are pleased to announce that Amanda Michel, the Guardian’s global contributions director and project manager, will be joining us as a speaker at the next newsrewired conference on 7 November 2018.
Two new speakers announced for newsrewired panel on getting Gen Z engaged with the news
With less than 10 weeks to go until the next newsrewired digital journalism conference, taking place on 7 November at Reuters in London, the Journalism.co.uk team is pleased to announce two more speakers joining us on the day.
McKenna Grant is a London-based Snapchat senior content editor at the Telegraph. Her team implemented a brand-new Snapchat editorial strategy at the newspaper in June 2017 and now the Telegraph’s Discover platform attracts an average of over one million daily unique viewers.
Vogue International’s Sarah Marshall to keynote at Journalism.co.uk’s next Newsrewired conference
We are pleased to announce that Sarah Marshall, head of audience growth at Vogue International, will be our keynote speaker at the upcoming newsrewired conference in November.
Audience growth is the key aim of every news organisation. Figuring out not only who follows your content but who will pay attention to it next is key for staying on top of your game.
Since Facebook changed its news feed algorithm, it has become harder for news organisations to gain traffic from platform shares.
In her keynote speech at newsrewired in London on 7 November 2018, Sarah Marshall will share her best tips on widening your pool of readers and spotting new trends in content sharing.
She will talk data, key performance indicators (KPIs), plans and targets; patterns in traffic and reader behaviour; the Facebook algorithm and the growth of search; and how Vogue is engaging audiences on Instagram and Snapchat.
Ellen Stewart, head of content at the world’s most-read LGBT media platform, PinkNews, joins opening panel on Gen Z
The opening panel at the newsrewired conference will explore what the younger generation (13-24) who never knew life without smartphones wants from news organisations.
The panellists will look at how to get the Gen Z engaged with your brand and, crucially, make them stay so you get ahead of your competition.
Ellen Stewart, head of content at the world’s most-read LGBT media platform, PinkNews, specialises in audience development and editorial campaigns. For the last three months, she has acted as launch Snapchat editor, with PinkNews becoming the first LGBT+ outlet to publish to Discover.
She previously worked at the Evening Standard as acting growth editor and head of social, where she built an audience team from the ground up and successfully delivered double-figure growth across social and SEO.
Announcing the agenda for the next newsrewired conference
The next newsrewired digital journalism conference will take place on 7 November 2018 at Reuters in Canary Wharf, London.
Over the past couple of weeks, the Journalism.co.uk team has been working on the programme for the event, and we’re pleased to announce our first session ideas we are currently developing.
The tickets (£190+VAT) give you access to the full-day conference on Wednesday 7 November 2018 and include lunch and refreshments, as well as after-event networking drinks and a delegate ‘goodie’ bag.
One of the key sessions of the day will be a discussion about what Generation Z (13-24) wants from news organisations.
From designing mobile-first, shareable story formats, to publishing on popular and lesser-known social platforms, the panel will explore how to adapt news content for the swipe-savvy Gen Z.
Slides and audio from newsrewired, 11 July
Journalism.co.uk’s latest newsrewired conference took place on 11 July at Reuters in London. Delegates heard from expert speakers from around Europe, learning from their experiences leading projects for media organisations including The Economist, Quartz, BBC, The Financial Times, Politico, and many more.
If you missed the event or if you want to share a part of the experience with your colleagues, this post will help you revise the resources and lessons presented during the day.
Journalism.co.uk has compiled a selection of slides and audio recordings from the sessions, as well as blogs written by our great team of volunteers at the event.
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