In 2024, both The Dallas Morning News and The Irish Times faced significant challenges and opportunities due to major political events, particularly elections. 

During INMA’s recent Subscriptions Town Hall, Katrice Hardy, executive editor of The Dallas Morning News, and Cliona Mooney, group data analytics and insights director at The Irish Times, explained how these events influenced their news coverage and affected their subscription strategies.

Keeping a local focus in Texas

For The Dallas Morning News, the 2024 elections in Texas meant focusing on local issues and how political platforms might affect Texas: “We are not trying to be the national newspaper of record; we really want to understand how these politicians’ platforms might affect Texas,” Hardy said. “And so that is our lens of being distinctive.”

That approach was both important and challenging when covering prominent political figures like U.S. senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. The news company stuck to its strategy of providing comprehensive coverage of the most pressing issues in Texas, which became particularly challenging in a polarised environment.

“We work really, really hard to try to understand different perspectives, and that can be kind of difficult,” Hardy noted. 

Readers would sometimes offer feedback saying they felt only one side of an issue was being covered, so Hardy said there were many internal discussions about nuanced reporting and ensuring that stories included as many voices and perspectives as possible.

As the political climate heated up, The Dallas Morning News launched a project called Back to the Ballot, where staff members engaged directly with the community. They spoke to 3,000 people across various locations, including libraries, recreation centres, and festivals, to understand the issues that mattered most to their readers. 

“The other thing we asked them was, ‘How often do you vote? How familiar are you with elections?’ Then we had this tailored newsletter approach to the folks who took the survey,” Hardy said. 

The readers received personalised information on why it’s important to vote, how to go and vote, and more information on the issues they found most important.

Data-driven coverage in Ireland

In Ireland, the political landscape was much different than in the United states but was just as rife with significant news stories. 

Although its 2024 general election saw the incumbent parties retain power, the year was marked by a series of dramatic events that included a pair of controversial referendums and the unexpected resignation of the prime minister. 

“It has been a really heavy political news cycle and we have absolutely seen the peaks of that from a traffic perspective, from a subscriptions perspective, and from an engagement perspective from our existing subscribers,” Mooney said.

Like The Dallas Morning News, The Irish Times also focused on understanding the needs of its readers, she said: “During this year we’ve been running a monthly poll called a snapshot poll, which is asking a thousand people every month what issues they’re noticing from a government perspective.”

This data-driven approach allowed the Irish Times to tailor its coverage and engage more effectively with its audience. Additionally, The Irish Times leveraged the popularity of the country’s new prime minister, Simon Harris, known as the “TikTok Taoiseach,” to attract younger readers through social media and innovative formats like podcasts and videos.

Turning data into subscriptions

As they move into 2025, both The Dallas Morning News and The Irish Times plan to build on their experiences from 2024 to enhance their subscription strategies. The Dallas Morning News will continue providing distinctive journalism that resonates with its local audience, Hardy said. 

“I think to be an editor of any news organisation, no matter what kind of organisation it is, you really have to think like a CEO,” she said. “Therefore, you need to be thinking about all kinds of ways that people might consume your information. You need to be thinking about how to build community trust and engagement. You need to be thinking about also how can I come up with other sustainable business models that maybe my company CEO didn't dream of but actually would really help with sustainability?”

The news company is launching new initiatives, such as a “data universe" project that will rely on vivid graphics and data-driven insights about life in North Texas to help readers understand “what it’s like living here,” she said. The project aims to drive subscriptions by offering valuable, unique content that cannot be found elsewhere.

The Dallas Morning News is also investing in community engagement and trust-building efforts and launched a marketing campaign called “This is Home,” which highlights the distinctiveness of its coverage and its commitment to serving the North Texas community. This campaign is designed to resonate with current and potential subscribers by emphasising the local relevance of the journalism.

Similarly, The Irish Times is focusing on enhancing the user experience and leveraging data to drive subscriptions. Mooney highlighted the importance of the app experience, noting that subscribers who use the app tend to be more engaged.

“The user experience is really key, and something we’re seeing from the political year was the importance of the app in terms of subscribers,” Mooney said. “So we’re trying to encourage more of our subscribers who are not using the app [to use it].”

The Irish Times is working on improving its app to drive its appeal. It continues experimenting with different formats and distribution methods to meet its readers' needs.

In addition to technological improvements, The Irish Times is committed to maintaining high journalistic standards while adapting to new formats. Explainers have been popular and help provide readers with practical information to help them make informed decisions. 

This approach is particularly important in a complex political environment where readers seek clarity and understanding, but it also can help drive subscriptions. Mooney said the company is experimenting with subscriber content, in which high-demand articles are available for just a short time before being placed behind a paywall to convert readers.

“One recent example [was] what the Trump presidency means for the Irish economy,” Mooney said. “That was one that really took off from the point of view of traffic and engagement levels and then was made subscriber-only within about an hour of being published.” 

Both news companies are exploring other ways to reach broader audiences. The Dallas Morning News has partnered with a Polish startup to produce a comprehensive multimedia story about the Texas border, combining video, podcasts, and investigative journalism. Hardy said such collaborations allow them to cover important stories in greater depth and reach a wider audience. 

The Irish Times plans to do two strong experiments each quarter with moving popular content behind the paywall after a very short time, Mooney said: “Interestingly when we look at the types of articles that fall into this bucket, we have not found a theme or trend in the context of the content. What binds them together is the fact that it’s high traffic and high engagement. So it is that sense of the data making the decision.”

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