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.
First the good news; you’re still in business. Now the bad; the outlook remains bleak with continued belt tightening the only discernible strategy at many regional publishers. Yet, writes Peter Sands, it doesn’t have to be this way.
The conundrum that faces advertisers, agencies and media owners at the beginning of 2011 is that online content – professional, user generated and social – forms an ever greater part of weekly media consumption, but, writes Deloitte’s Andrew Haughton
The year ahead will be a pivotal one for leading US consumer magazine publishers, writes Karlene Lukovitz.
Shortage of data is not the problem for most publishers; it’s working out what to do with it that is the challenge. Actionable intelligence is the key, says Ian Eckert, to reversing the record of online underachievement.
Paywalls were one of the two big media stories of 2010 (the iPad was the other) and the debate still rages as to whether Rupert Murdoch will succeed with his experiment. Will the Times paywall, now six months old, stand the test of time, asks Ross St
The debate over what to charge for content has raged since the inception of the web, but has increased in intensity as it became clear that there wasn’t going to be enough ad revenue to go around. Carolyn Morgan looks at the merits of the two approac
The Association of Online Publishers recently launched a research initiative to improve our understanding of advertising engagement. Tim Cain summarises the findings and assesses what impact they will have on the search for effective metrics.
In the digital, converged multi-media, multi-national global space, writes Jim Chisholm, who should be allowed to own, or control what?
Centaur Media has announced the appointment of Rebecca Miskin as a non-executive director and member of Centaur Media Plc’s Remuneration Committee with immediate effect.
The Association of Online Publishers (AOP) has appointed Piers Jones, Head of Product Development, Guardian News & Media to Chair the Product Development Committee with immediate effect.
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has combined two of its major digital media conferences into one new event Digital Media Europe which will be held in London on 11 to 13 April next.
Two of the NFRN’s three operational regions have been renamed and some of the district responsibilities of the operations managers have changed in a New Year reshuffle.
An expanded version of The Editors' Codebook, the handbook to the Code of Practice used by the Press Complaints Commission to adjudicate on complaints, has been launched.
Lads’ mag ZOO, has launched an Android app - ZOO Roller Girl.
Future, the special-interest media group, has announced the launch of its GamesRadar iPhone/iPod Touch App – ‘GamesRadar Cheats and Guides’.
