If legacy news publishers are to have a future, it will be written by today’s younger audiences.

That was the unmistakable message running through INMA’s Media Innovation Week in Dublin, where European editors, executives, and strategists put youth engagement at the very centre of survival.

The question is not whether news companies need to win younger readers. It is whether they can adapt quickly enough to meet the expectations of people who have grown up in a completely different media environment — an environment of TikTok feeds, creator economies, podcasts, chatbots, and communities that look little like the newsrooms of old.

Drawing on dozens of sessions, case studies, and study tour stops during the five-day INMA Media Innovation Week, what emerges is a road map that goes beyond chasing platforms. To connect with younger generations, news companies must rethink tone, formats, newsroom culture, and business models.

From authority to authenticity

One of the clearest shifts discussed at INMA Dublin was the move away from the lecturing voice that defined legacy media.

For younger readers, authority is not earned by simply declaring expertise. It must be demonstrated through authenticity.

Jess Awtry, vice president of digital strategy and communications at Pew Research Center, offered this: “You can’t expect younger audiences to come to you. You need to go where they are — on platforms, in formats, with the tone and personality that resonates with them — and then build trust from there.”

This means embracing conversational styles and borrowing techniques from creators. 

Schibsted Senior Advisor Lena K. Samuelsson echoed that young people “don’t want a lecture; they want a conversation.” Short, visual, personality-driven content is often the entry point. Once trust is established, deeper reporting becomes possible.

The challenge for newsrooms steeped in the tradition of authority is not “dumbing down” but translating serious journalism into the vernacular of youth culture. This requires new editorial muscles and, critically, new cultural permission inside newsrooms.

Meeting audiences where they live

Another recurring theme was blunt: Young readers will not migrate back to legacy formats on their own. It is the publisher’s job to meet them where they already are — in the ecosystems where they socialise and discover information. 

That means TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and podcasts. Several speakers went so far as to describe vertical video as “the Internet’s dominant engagement format” — something every newsroom must master, whether or not it sits comfortably with traditional workflows.

The Dublin study tour underlined this point. At Bauer Media in Dublin, INMA participants heard how youth-focused podcasts like Hold My Drink and Talking Bollocks do not just attract mass followings; they also spill into live events that sell out arenas, merchandise, and loyal communities

The lesson was clear: Content must feel native to each platform. Simply parachuting a newspaper article into TikTok or clipping a broadcast package into Instagram rarely works. Success comes when storytelling is designed for the medium — and when it feels like it belongs in the cultural language of its users.

Redefining what counts as news

Several case studies challenged the assumption that “real” journalism is confined to politics, economics, and institutional beats.

RTÉ showed how community-based, lifestyle, and explainer journalism often outperforms traditional hard news when it comes to drawing in new and younger audiences.

The Irish Times’ 4U content project revealed a similar blind spot: Stories about health, family, and identity did not always rank highly in traffic dashboards but proved powerful in driving engagement and subscriptions among women aged 30–45. One editor reported a 95% increase in paidviews from female subscribers reading 4U content.

For younger audiences, subjects such as mental health, climate change, gender identity, and family life are not “soft” but deeply relevant. The Dublin conversations reinforced that youth engagement is not about chasing celebrity fluff but about connecting journalism to lived experience. 

Data-driven understanding of new generations

Data emerged as one of the most powerful tools for revealing blind spots.

The Irish Times shared how segmented audience analysis showed that stories dismissed as weak performers in general traffic were in fact highly valued within specific demographics. Without that lens, such journalism might have been wrongly judged a failure. 

Other news companies emphasised shifting from clicks and page views to attention time as their North Star metric. Mediahuis executives, among others, argued that “not all pages are equal. What matters is whether the right audiences spend real time with your journalism.”

This reframing pushes newsrooms to prioritise depth over reach.

For young audiences in particular, sustained attention is a stronger signal of trust and relevance than fleeting clicks.

Learning from creators, not fighting them

The spectre of influencers and independent creators hovered over almost every Dublin discussion. But the message was surprisingly constructive. Creators are not the enemy; they are the mirror.

Sophia Smith Galer, a journalist turned successful creator, warned that “for young audiences, authenticity matters more than authority. They will forgive rough edges if they feel you are real, but they won’t forgive being patronised.” 

Schibsted has experimented with creator-style storytelling, learning how personality-driven formats foster intimacy and community. The emphasis is not on replacing reporters with influencers but on adopting creator techniques to make journalism more human and less institutional.

As one Newsroom Innovation Hub participant put it: “Creators build communities, not just audiences. That’s the mindset shift legacy media must make if we want to stay relevant.”

Audio as a youth magnet

If video dominates visually, audio is the sleeper hit of youth engagement.

Svenska Dagbladet in Sweden has leaned heavily into podcasts and audio documentaries. Madelaine Levy, head of storytelling, described how audio allows people to “spend hours with Svenska Dagbladet” — an intimacy difficult to replicate in text. 

Bauer Media’s podcasts show how audio can extend into live events and fan communities. The medium’s portability fits seamlessly into the daily routines of younger generations raised on streaming and earbuds.

For many publishers, audio is not just a supplement but a primary gateway for first-time engagement with young audiences. 

Communities, not just audiences

Perhaps the deepest strategic shift identified at INMA Dublin was the move from transactional reach to relational belonging.

Younger audiences no longer see themselves as passive consumers of media; they expect to participate, share, comment, and interact. They want media that reflects their identities and values, and they reward publishers who embed themselves into their lives rather than broadcasting from a distance.

Some of the most compelling experiments showcased during the week illustrated this mindset.

The News Movement, a start-up with teams in London and New York, has built its proposition entirely on community logic: recruiting young journalists who speak in the same vernacular as their peers and fostering dialogue on TikTok and Instagram so that audiences feel like collaborators rather than consumers.

In Poland, Outriders has demonstrated how newsletters can evolve into participatory spaces where readers actively shape coverage and feel part of an ongoing conversation, turning journalism into a community project rather than a one-way product.

Legacy publishers are also learning these lessons.

Russmedia in Austria has invested in hyper-local platforms that give young people ownership of storytelling in their towns and villages, reinforcing identity and pride while cultivating loyalty.

Ouest-France, meanwhile, has experimented with civic participation initiatives that bring younger readers directly into debates about local issues, strengthening journalism’s role as a shared civic space rather than a detached institution.

These initiatives underline the shift from audience to community. As one Dublin participant put it, engagement is not transactional but relational. The future belongs to news organisations that understand their role is not only to inform, but to belong — to become part of the fabric of younger readers’ lives.

Business models and the youth question

Winning young audiences is not just about editorial survival. It is also about the future of revenue.

Subscriptions cannot be sustained if younger readers never acquire the habit of paying for journalism, and advertising now depends less on scale and more on attention and trust — two areas where creators have already established dominance.

Publishers across Media Innovation Week in Dublin demonstrated how they are reshaping business models to meet this challenge:

• Aftonbladet has moved beyond the idea of a subscription to create a broader membership package that blends core journalism with lifestyle services and entertainment. By bundling news with everyday utilities, the brand embeds itself more firmly into the daily routines of younger users, ensuring it is seen less as a product to buy and more as a service to belong to.
• Svenska Dagbladet has shown that audio can be more than a gateway; it can be a revenue engine. Its podcasts and audio documentaries have succeeded in converting younger and more female audiences into paying subscribers, illustrating that the intimacy of audio can translate directly into financial support.
• On the advertising side, Mediahuis is deliberately breaking with legacy metrics by replacing raw impressions with attention time as its commercial currency. This is especially relevant to younger audiences, whose fragmented attention requires advertisers to value depth of engagement over superficial reach. 

Other publishers are using youth-friendly platforms as test beds for new revenue models.

For example, Funke Media in Germany has created TikTok-focused newsroom squads that experiment with short-form storytelling designed for branded partnerships and platform-native campaigns, opening fresh monetisation channels.

RTÉ is following a similar path by developing sponsorships and partnerships around explainer and lifestyle formats — genres that have proven to resonate far more with younger audiences than political reporting ever could. 

Together, these approaches show business models must evolve as quickly as editorial formats. As Greg Piechota, INMA’s researcher-in-residence, reminded delegates, the financial future of journalism rests not just on technology or creative packaging but on whether a new generation decides journalism is worth both their time and their money. 

Study tour insights: what young audiences expect 

The Dublin study tour provided further nuance.

At Bauer Media, participants saw how youth podcasts translate into brand extensions with real commercial clout. At The Journal.ie, the team explained how trust with younger audiences is built through transparency and relatability rather than institutional authority.

Elsewhere, discussions at the Business Post highlighted the need to think beyond journalism itself. By combining education, experiences, and research, they are positioning themselves as a broader professional tool — a model that may resonate with younger professionals who want utility as well as information. 

A road map for relevance 

Pulling together the week’s discussions, the road map for youth engagement can be summarised in four deceptively simple shifts: 

• Authenticity over authority. 
• Community over clicks. 
• Conversation over lecture. 
• Attention over reach. 

These are not cosmetic tweaks. They require deep changes in newsroom culture, metrics, and business models. They demand permission to experiment, willingness to learn from creators, and courage to redefine what counts as news. 

Most of all, they require humility: The recognition that the future of journalism will be decided not by the strength of brands alone, but by whether young people decide journalism has value in their lives.

Editor’s note: This article summarises, with the assistance of ChatGPT, original content created by INMA. All content has been reviewed and edited by INMA editors.

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