I recently attended Stagwell’s Future of News NewsFronts event in New York, a day of presentations, conversations, and networking with the news, media, and advertising community. 

This event is part of Stagwell’s years-long Future of News effort, which, in my opinion, has been and continues to be vitally important to celebrate and shine a light on the value and importance of quality journalism. It is also one of several things I think are actually helping news publishers combat the very difficult, frustrating, and unfair application of “brand safety.” 

Stagwell’s recent inaugural Future of News NewsFronts event in New York brought together nearly 30 publisher partners to arm the industry with the best case for news.

Stagwell CEO Mark Penn opened with characteristic directness: “The idea that brands should avoid news is outdated and wrong. It’s time for brands to invest in news. Advertising in trusted outlets isn’t just safe, but it's one of the smartest moves you can make to drive performance and earn consumer trust.”

Penn highlighted the signature finding from Stagwell’s now years-long Future of News Initiative: Campaigns in news media demonstrate 3x higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to other paid media channels, based on Stagwell agency Assembly’s Media Mix Model. One leading global logistics client saw 136% transaction growth from news-focused campaigns. 

The audience research proved equally compelling: 13.8% of U.S. adults — approximately 36.8 million individuals — qualify as “exclusive news junkies” who follow news very closely but not sports or entertainment, meaning they are only reachable through news. 

That represents growth from 11.1% in 2024, adding roughly 7.2 million engaged adults year-over-year. Among this cohort, average purchase intent for tested brand ads reached 66% compared to 50% among the general population, based on HarrisX research of 7,126 U.S. adults conducted in June 2025. 

Penn didn’t mince words about the current state: “There is a ‘perverse distortion’ in the news media ad market” where crude brand safety tools needlessly cost the industry billions in revenue. 

The event’s programming spanned three tracks: Productization (featuring Michael Barbaro of The Daily), Monetization (with Mike Allen of Axios), and Innovation (led by Mo News founder Mosheh Oinounou).

Executives from The New York Times, CNN, Financial Times, The Guardian, Axios, Axel Springer, and two dozen others delivered seven-minute presentations showcasing their offerings. News media advertising executives and representatives from MiQ, Target, and major media brands participated in panels exploring sustainable journalism models and revenue innovation.

The NewsFronts event provided all the elements to make the case for the value of news media advertising, which I sketched out the morning after on LinkedIn and I’ll lay out here as clearly and concisely as possible:

• News offers brands an extremely valuable audience … period. As Mark Penn highlighted, 80.4M U.S. adults consider themselves “news junkies.” These people are extremely valuable consumers — as Penn said, “Information users are information consumers.” (Reminder that at INMA’s Media Innovation Week in Dublin, INMA Reader First Initiative Lead and Researcher-in-Residence Grzegorz Piechota and I highlighted research that showed how news “superusers” are more valuable consumers and more receptive to advertising across all categories.)

• News brand environments are a better place to reach them than outside of news. Ben Winkler of New York Times Advertising highlighted Kantar’s recent finding that consumer audiences are more receptive to advertising on The New York Times than on any other platform, including Amazon, Apple, Netflix, YouTube and others. This reinforces years of studies that have found superior ad receptivity across all premium news audiences and environments. Further, Guy Griggs of CNN made the case that we need to expand the definition of news to any “recently received or noteworthy information about a current event” — in other words, not just politics but, sports, tech, entertainment. News is the cultural conversation.

• There is a valuable subset of the news audience that is *only reachable* through news. Stagwell calls these people “exclusive news junkies” and, as I highlighted above, revealed research at NewsFronts that the size of this group has increased +3% YoY to nearly 14% of the U.S. population. These findings were further reinforced by Lara Koenig of MiQ who showed research that 10% of the CTV audience can *only* be reached on news and conversion rates are 33% higher on news than on other verticals.

• News audiences appreciate brands more when they support the news. This is what the IAB originally coined as “the halo effect” of news. It was reinforced throughout the day at Newsfronts. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, pointed out that “friends and family” are the most trusted sources of news, and local journalism at its best is an extension of that community.

• What it all adds up to is that news isn’t just safe, it offers superior performance. As Penn said, taking news out of a plan “just defies common sense.”

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