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.
Thousands of Hull City fans enjoyed the drama of football’s transfer deadline day, posting a comment on average every 5 seconds in a day-long interactive discussion with Hull Daily Mail journalists.
The economic slowdown presents publishers with a perfect opportunity to take stock, especially on the digital front. Now is the time, says Steve Macvicar, to conduct that long-overdue digital healthcheck.
There are few more exposed places to be in newspaper publishing than in the editor’s chair. For a start, in an age of declining sales, how do you measure a job well done? Alan Geere talks to four leading editors about how they see their role.
Making economies in publishing houses is a path almost as well-worn as the Appian Way. Downsize, merge back office, squeeze suppliers, cut training budgets, axe travel, fold sections, transfer local sub-editors into regional “centres of excellence” (
For some former print titles, the switch to digital edition is a step into the unknown, is not always done for the right reasons, and is done with little imagination. For K9 Magazine, a print title from an overwhelmingly digital stable, it was like c
The online social media service, Twitter, has fascinated media executives worldwide. But what is actually being achieved through the thing, and how could it actually make us some money? Ross Sturley investigates.
In the brave new world of free online content, how will media be consumed and paid-for? How will technology affect how consumers use different media? How will established publishers and media owners have to evolve to survive? Carolyn Morgan attended
With the seemingly remorseless rise of citizen journalists and UGC, do we still need the real thing? Shouldn’t we just hand out camera phones to all and sundry and wait for the exclusives to flood in? And, assuming we do need them, how should we be t
At long last the future of newspapers, print versus online editions, charging for online and the industry’s relationship with social networking sites can all be reduced to a series of numbers. Ray Snoddy explains.
Johnston Press, has announced interim results for the 26 weeks ended 30 June 2009.
Athletics Weekly, the track and field magazine, published by Descartes Publishing claims to be the first magazine in the world to start selling subscriptions to full digital editions via the iPhone e-commerce store.
This is the text of the MacTaggart Lecture, given by James Murdoch at the 2009 Edinburgh International Television Festival on 28 August.
IPC Media has unveiled plans to create a central digital advertising operation: IPC Media Digital Sales.
News International yesterday announced that Dominic Mohan has been appointed Editor of The Sun with effect 2 September 2009.
Full service mobile marketing agency The YOC Group has announced that the PistonHeads mobile website created for Haymarket Consumer Media is now live.
