A decade ago, Debate Media started its digital transformation “very clumsily, making many mistakes,” Andrea Miranda, director of content and digital transformation, told attendees of the recent  INMA Latin American Conference.

Highlighting that her company is located in Sinaloa, almost 1,000 miles from the capital, Mexico City, making its operation different than those in other locations, Miranda said: “Sometimes in our municipalities we face shortages.” To access the Internet in some places, one must go to specialised cafes because the signal does not reach everywhere, a situation similar in many places in Latin America, she said.

Content and staff

Debate has five print products that circulate throughout Sinaloa plus several cultural and commercial special supplements. The news company started operations in 1941, and in 1973 became the media outlet for local sports tournaments.

Sports were a very practical way to connect with the community, ranging from children to the elderly. However, it was in 2011 that they began with the Web edition, which fed with content from the print editions.

Between 2016 and 2022, they focused on creating and acquiring niche vertical portals, while in 2024, they are concentrated on generating content through Artificial Intelligence, business events, and talent workshops.

An example of the events they organise is Big Fish, a sport fishing competition with categories for children and adults and their respective Web site.

The directors of Debate realised some of their topics could be of national interest and thus began to expand and reach other places beyond the state of Sinaloa, with a continually upward curve marked with peaks and valleys, as their traffic depends on technological platforms and therefore is tied to algorithm changes of these platforms.

For content generation, they appointed four regional editors, one in the afternoon and one at night, thus achieving a trend of 70% of users in Mexico, 10% in the United States, 3% in Spain, and 3% in Colombia.

For these products, they added 40 columnists, 20 men and 20 women, who publish in both print and digital. The ages of these content creators range from 20 to 40. In total, there are 100 columnists who generate content for Debate.

They had a reason to choose these age ranges in an attempt to attract younger readers, as their existing audience was aging.

These changes allowed them to improve the readability of some sections, including one on religion, with an average reading time of seven minutes per column, both in print and online. In the case of young columnists, the company helped them develop as content producers.

Recently, the day with the highest traffic was during the coverage of the total solar eclipse on March 8, thanks to the live broadcast of the phenomenon.

Change of focus

About four years ago, Debate focused especially on police and public order issues, as it is known that one of the most organised and dangerous drug organisations in the country is the Sinaloa cartel. Another of the most popular topics was entertainment, but through careful and dedicated work, they were able to broaden the topics and achieve a greater national reach.

Today, police topics are no longer the most important and have moved to fourth place in readability within the portal, which has four homepages.

The search for new, more specialised topics arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as makeup and hairstyles, cell phones and gadgets, DIY, and the already existing ones, like Big Fish.

Some verticals are seasonal, Miranda explained, such as baseball, and others, such as fishing, have content throughout the year. Even though the traffic is relatively low for the fishing articles, the section is good for certain advertisers that want to promote their products there.

Debate acquired some already accredited social media platforms but failed in that attempt, Miranda said. What did work for them was to talk about little-explored topics in the industry. This allowed them to experiment regarding which of these topics were successful in terms of traffic generation.

When Facebook’s Instant Articles ended, Miranda recalled, one of Debate’s verticals also ended, as its traffic and revenue depended 96% on that social network’s functionality. This forced them to be more innovative and minimise the risks of losing traffic due to factors beyond their control.

Steps to develop a product

The product development process and begins by saying that the product’s objective must be defined, Miranda explained, then the business model is specified, the niche or microniche is selected, talents are sought, and the name, URL, and look and feel are defined.

Then the technical development of the site is done, it goes live, the audience is evaluated, and steps are taken to build loyalty with the audience “with whom we must be very sincere,” said Miranda, meaning this is the only way to stay relevant.

Diversifying revenue

Currently, Debate operates in 20 different cities in Latin America. Recent years, though, have been difficult in terms of revenue, with 2024 being the hardest as traffic has been declining, Miranda said: “With Artificial Intelligence, we are going to lose more traffic, and it will not come back.”

Miranda pointed out one way to face the situation is to maintain what she calls a “talent culture” within the newsrooms, which means a favourable and pleasant work environment.

Debate constantly reorganises newsrooms, changes positions in the organisational chart, and intensifies journalist training at all levels to face the challenges of an ever-changing digital environment. These training sessions have reached the point of offering a master’s degree in business for editors and journalists, as well as immersion courses in the digital world for newly graduated journalists.

Another of Debate’s policies regarding its human team is they try not to fire anyone but to readapt and relocate them, in addition to certain internal motivations to build team loyalty: “We work with small, diverse, high-performance teams, with passionate people,” Miranda said.

Regarding audiences, the news company strives to write for people, not for algorithms, something reinforced with scroll depth, honesty of the content, internal recirculation to related articles, longer sessions per user, and community maturation.

The effort is especially noticeable in the type of content produced, meant to be useful, interesting, with mystique and oriented to specific audiences, with editors setting the tone in the approach and quality of the content to reach a demanding and informed audience.

Miranda summarised ompany’s initiatives by quoting one of its directors: “Make mistakes, but make them quickly.”

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