Editor’s note: In this ongoing series, INMA is profiling our most engaged members — our super fans — to give members a chance to learn more about each other. Today we profile Troels Behrendt Jørgensen, digital director for Politiken in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Many media outlets are realising that younger audiences are their new lifeblood. “This is the most important realisation that I and the management team have come to in our 2022 plans,” said Troels Behrendt Jørgensen, digital director for Politiken in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Last year, we concluded that continued growth in our subscription sales and future reach was closely linked to our ties with younger audiences. We spent many resources to kick-start an editorial and commercial development aimed at new, younger customers and concluded that this is a necessary change process for Politiken.”

INMA caught up with him recently to learn what else is on his mind these days.  

INMA: If you had your career to do over again, what would you want to know in the beginning?

Jørgensen: I think I would have made the same choices again. A degree in journalism can lead to a lot of things, but for me, it didn’t lead to much journalistic output of my own. If podcasting had existed as a format when I was 28, it’s far from certain that digital media management would have ended up being my livelihood.

INMA: What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning?

Jørgensen: I love developing journalistic products and media offerings, refining them with a team, and seeing them succeed. It doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does, it’s very satisfying.

INMA: What is the craziest job or project you’ve ever done in media — and what did you learn from it?

Jørgensen: Twenty years ago, I tried to get a team of teletext journalists to love the Internet and create a news service on the Danish public service Web site. If I had known how difficult, rewarding, and sometimes impossible that task was, I probably would have thought twice before going into the job. I think I learned the medium itself is not the message. 

INMA: What success within your company are you most proud of right now?

Jørgensen: Five years of continuous and profitable digital transformation. Not an effort I can take credit for alone, but it has been a source of pride and joy for all of us at Politiken.

INMA: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your career?

Jørgensen: That my job does not define who I am and there is a sharply marked upper limit to what I can tolerate and cope with as a human being.

INMA: What do you do to relax?

Jørgensen: I run, listen to music, and try to spend quality time with my family. Gardening is also surprisingly relaxing it turns out.

INMA: If you hadn’t gone into news media, what was your backup plan?

Jørgensen: It had definitely been some form of teaching, which is the background I come from. My siblings and parents all are or have worked as teachers.

INMA: What is your favourite thing to read?

Jørgensen: I read a lot of non-fiction in my field, but unfortunately far too little prose. The last time I was engrossed in a literary work was when I read my way through Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle.” I would highly recommend throwing yourself into his six volumes of reflections on life as a man.

INMA: What do you find the most challenging/interesting about the news media industry right now?

Jørgensen: How free will the media be allowed to be in the future? Will the autocratic tendencies in Eastern Europe and the general tendency among politicians throughout the Western world to want more control over the media end up limiting freedom of expression and media independence?

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