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.
The Financial Times yesterday kicked off this year’s Digital Learning Week with a focus on the data-driven newsroom, the rise of ad-blocking, audience engagement, and disruptive technologies.
Trinity Mirror’s New Businesses team has created a free app designed for the anonymous reporting of antisocial behaviour, hate crime and other criminal activity.
The Sunday Times Scotland announces today that Kevin Pringle, former strategic communications director for the SNP, will be writing a new weekly column for the paper.
After a period of beta testing, Guardian readers outside the UK, US and Australia will now be presented with an international edition of the Guardian homepage.
Advertisers spent a record £3.98 billion on digital advertising in the first half of 2015 – up 13.4% year-on-year – according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK Digital Adspend report, conducted by PwC.
Johnston Press plc, one of the leading local media groups in the UK, has closed a number of its free titles and renegotiated a number of key contracts as part of its cost reduction programme.
Miles 33 has announced that Champion Media Group has selected Miles 33 solutions for their next generation publishing system.
Telegraph Media Group (TMG) has announced that it is a preview partner for the new open source project: Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), to speed up mobile web.
Global business technology Ve Interactive has appointed senior digital consultant Peter Smith to head up the publishing sector, where he will be overseeing accounts including The Times, Time Magazine, Drum and Foyles.
At last week’s AOP conference, BBC journalist Kate Adie gave an impassioned defence of good old fashioned eyewitness reporting and it’s continuing relevance in the digital age. Forget being first to publish, urged Kate, concentrate on getting it righ
A new report from WAN-IFRA examines the main options for newspaper printers in the wake of news media's transformation: optimizing production costs, contending with hurdles and pitfalls, and - most importantly - developing new models to secure their
To combat the rising issue of ad viewability, Exponential has partnered globally with analytics company Moat to only charge advertisers for video ads that are viewable according to the IAB’s definition.
The Telegraph has announced the launch of its new edition app on iOS, Android and Kindle.
Four news titles in Greater Manchester have worked together on a joint campaign calling for a fair deal from the Government on devolution.
The World Digital Media Awards are always an inspiring showcase of what news organizations can do, says WAN-IFRA, but this year's prize crop included a particularly moving selection that underlined the power of technology to inspire emotion as well a
