The newspaper business was built for a world where one product served everyone and advertising paid for most of it. That model has gone. What replaces it is still being worked out title by title, from national groups to weeklies covering a single town.
Reader revenue is the clearest shift. Even Reach, which argued for free access for years, now puts some of its journalism behind a paywall, and the regional titles doing best changed their newsrooms before they asked anyone to pay. Ownership keeps changing too. National World rebuilt local editorships after years of centralisation, and the Observer is being reinvented as a premium print and digital title under new owners.
The strongest publishers understand the difference because they are not trying to be everything to everyone. They are trying to be essential to someone.
Chris Sherrard News media
Local news is where the pressure shows most. Millions of people now live without a dedicated local title, and new reader-funded and membership startups are moving into the gaps. Platforms are pulling back from news at the same time, which leaves trust and a direct relationship with readers as the assets that matter most.
Print hasn't disappeared either. Well-run weeklies still hold on to their readers, with circulation falling slowly while digital audiences grow.
Below you'll find some of our best feature articles on news media, from reader revenue and newsroom change to ownership, local news and trust, alongside our latest news and industry commentary.
Where is the growth opportunity for today’s publishers? Douglas McCabe tracks how the commercial model has evolved over the past fifty years and examines whether a better understanding of what online audiences want, will help drive future growth.
We asked Chris Sherrard, editor-in-chief of The Irish News, what does best practice publishing look like in news media? This is what he said…
After years of resisting paywalls, Reach is now launching them across its titles. But David Higgerson, Reach’s chief content officer, carefully avoided the word ‘U-turn’ when interviewed by Steve Dyson.
It’s one thing to think that readers should pay for your journalism, but the reality is that unless you improve your offering, then you will struggle to start charging for it, as DC Thomson Editor-in-Chief Frank O’Donnell tells Ciar Byrne.
How can you edit a regional newspaper when you never visit the area you’re writing about? By filling it with generic content, an approach that National World’s David Montgomery, the new owner of JPI Media, is rapidly doing away with.
Ray Snoddy talks to Co-CEO Rich Furness about the thinking behind Tortoise Media’s acquisition of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper and about their plans for its future.
What’s the outlook for national news media in 2024? Christian Broughton, CEO of The Independent, looks ahead.
There is a new generation of entrepreneurs launching local media businesses, bringing with them new ideas on business models and funding. Phil Clark looks at some of the stand-out examples.
With Meta backing away from ‘news’ and AI accelerating the growth of disinformation, we need to redouble our efforts to safeguard access to quality journalism, says News Media Association Chief Executive Owen Meredith.
East Lothian is not just the best place to live – it has the best newsbrand too. Alan Geere heads over the border to find out what’s happening in the world of Scottish weeklies.
Following a six-month long enquiry into the UK advertising industry, the House of Lords has recommended that digital industry bodies must be given more power to enforce rules on robust standards or face government legislation.
PCS, a leading publishing software developer, yesterday announced that Rich Mansell has been appointed as Product Manager for Knowledge Publish, a role that also sees him joining the Senior Management Team.
The formation of a Global Council to Build Trust in Media and Fight Misinformation was announced yesterday at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.
The Printing Charity has announced that Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, has accepted its invitation to be the charity’s 2018 President.
Senior officials from the NFRN, led by National President Linda Sood, have today (Wednesday April 11) called on the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate newspaper and magazine distribution in the UK.
Wave 2, part of the Miles 33 group, has announced that BDUmedia, a large regional newspaper publishing group in the Netherlands, has selected AdPortal to bolster their new customer self-service offerings.
The winners of this year's WAN-IFRA European Digital Media Awards were announced on 10 April during a special ceremony at the end of the first day of Digital Media Europe Conference in Copenhagen.
Now in its eighth generation, the latest version of vjoon K4 supports Adobe CC 2018 and features two new modules. Many details have been refined to streamline tasks and simplify work processes.
James Evelegh's editorial from this week's edition of InPubWeekly.
The London Press Club yesterday announced the shortlist for its annual Awards.
Women in the media industry are losing out to men in pay, says the NUJ, with their male colleagues earning more, occupying more senior roles and receiving bigger bonuses, the government gender pay reporting service has revealed.
After the failed attempt to implement a policy to suspend journalist’s accreditation over fake news, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry of India has formed a committee without any representation of working journalists to recommend regulations
Findings from the latest Digital Publishers Revenue Index (DPRI), a quarterly report on UK publishing from the Association for Online Publishing (AOP) and Deloitte, reveals publishers experienced a 5.6% growth in total digital revenue in 2017 compare
Today (Thursday 5th April), Metro has teamed up with Fox Networks Group in the UK to deliver a translucent cover wrapped around 900,000 copies of the newspaper in London.
This week, the newly unified Mail and Metro commercial teams officially come together and begin serving the market as one advertising sales function, under the new name Mail Metro Media.
