The news media industry navigated 2024 with a nervous optimism focused on levers under their control, worries about ecosystems and technology out of their control, and concerns about the connection between journalism and changing consumer habits. 

Over the past year, these themes played out across INMA stages worldwide, both in-person and virtual — from the grand London World Congress to the intimate CEO Roundtable at Vail, from Webinars to virtual master classes, and from confidential meetings to casual dinners among industry leaders.

Going into 2024, INMA’s Board of Directors asked us to design a year for impact and influence on the news industry. Could we grow the insight layer developed in recent years from our initiatives? Could we keep the best of the pandemic-created virtual activities? And could we fuse those successes with INMA’s unique in-person experiences worldwide? 

As we wrap up 2024, I want to share how INMA delivered the year our Board of Directors envisioned, what the news industry learned through INMA over the past 12 months, and what foundations now exist that our industry can build on for the year ahead.

Key insights

Cutting through the INMA universe, here are the five most important insights I took away from the past year: 

1. Journalism in the business model: Journalism’s mix in a news brand’s value proposition is the biggest determiner of consumer-focused financial sustainability. And to be clear: “News” is not “journalism,” a growing discussion in the news industry.
2. No subscription ceiling: There is no subscription volume ceiling. We aren’t remotely close. But the next levels up for growth will require more work, more creativity, and more segmentation. 
3. GenAI and the news ecosystem: GenAI’s impact on news media is still to be determined. It remains a seedling. The impact inside media companies may be less than the impact on the ecosystem around us. Content discovery is only the beginning as answer engines emerge. 
4. Fighting or embracing the helplessness: News publishers either need to focus on taking back control of their financial fortunes (advertising, tech stack) or embracing that success lies in the hands of tech companies. C-suites: What is really in your hands?
5. Brand is back: The news brand is the centrifugal force pushing media toward a deeper understanding of consumer needs. 

GenAI was the over-arching subject that galvanised the INMA community in 2024, mostly notably during the association’s 94^th Annual World Congress of News Media in London. 

How we gleaned these insights is an INMA story I’m pleased to share.

Membership continues to grow

So, who is the International News Media Association (INMA) as a community as we wrap up 2024?

INMA today has 22,833 members across 1,000+ media companies in 93 countries: 

• Regional: This includes 48% from Europe, 27% from North America, 9% from South Asia, 7% from Latin America, 6% from Asia/Pacific, 2% from Africa, and 1% from the Middle East. 

• Professional: While professional definitions are changing, some 22% of members identify themselves with newsrooms, 12% with leadership, 11% with product, 10% with audience, 10% with advertising, and 9% with business intelligence. An intriguing 15% label themselves as “other.” 

INMA corporate membership grew 4% in 2024, while the number of people who are members rose 7%. This includes 21 new corporate members and a record 194 new individual members. 

The 2024 growth is part of a longer-term storyline over time that dates back a decade.

The rise of initiatives 

In late 2018, INMA launched the Readers First Initiative, which focused on the hottest subject in news media: digital subscriptions. INMA’s productisation of a passion subject was so successful that, during the pandemic, we scaled the concept up to include additional subjects. 

In 2024, we focused on five subjects with five initiatives: 

• Readers First: We learned this year there is no subscription ceiling. This wasn’t an opinion; this was statistically gleaned from INMA’s exclusive Subscription Benchmark Service and pushed back against a negative narrative. 

• Product & Tech: We learned that GenAI will forever change content discovery and navigating the fast-emerging tech space deserves deeper exploration. 

• Newsroom Transformation: We learned that change management is driven by data insights and user needs — and that transformation will never end. 

• GenAI: We learned that an efficiency focus has evolved into a productivity focus at media companies when it comes to generative AI.

• Digital Platforms: We learned that content agreements and ad tech remain existential challenges for publishers and Big Tech companies.  

These initiatives not only go into great detail on subjects of vital interest to news media companies, they create a kind of sparkle in their collaboration. In 2024, the subject-matter collaboration centered on GenAI and its many ramifications. Yet it was the consistent contribution by our initiative leads to an INMA Slack channel that made this a regular source of insights and communication among nearly 900 passionate members.

In 2024, INMA corporate members leveraged initiatives for deeper engagements on key subjects — including in-person sessions with c-suites, boards, or even employee town halls. INMA initiative leads held 85 virtual Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions with corporate members and an additional 47 AMAs in-person at member offices or at INMA conferences. Beyond this, INMA initiative leads engaged 148 times in the past year with in-depth written communications with members.

In-person and virtual events 

INMA’s in-person events are experiences unto themselves, with conferences, study tours, seminars, and social activities that are unparalleled. Here’s how we executed an in-person/virtual model this year: 

• 4 in-person conferences: Record-setting World Congress in London, a Subscriptions Summit in New York, and regional conferences in Helsinki and New Delhi. Combined, these four in-person conferences attracted 1,368 registrants.

• 6 study tours: Our popular study tours took members to the front row of media innovators in London (2), New York, Helsinki, Los Angeles, and New Delhi. These premium study tours attracted 199 media professionals. 

INMA dazzled London’s Victoria & Albert Museum with the presentation of the much-anticipated Global Media Awards — with top recipients coming from 771 entries from 245 news media brands in 43 countries.

And INMA continues to be a weekly virtual presence on members’ computer screens and mobile devices: 

• 5 virtual topical master classes: Focused on deep dives into subscriber retention and acquisition, generative AI, mobile-first news Web sites, and newsroom transformation. These five master classes garnered 467 active and engaged registrants. 

• 3 virtual regional summits: Africa, Asia/Pacific, and Latin America regional summits garnered 1,442 registrations as we shined a light on local innovation.

• 5 end-of-year virtual town halls: Report cards on major INMA initiatives focused on subscriptions, product & tech, GenAI, and newsroom transformation — plus the unveiling of year two of a CMS Vendor Selection Tool with the Google News Initiative. Combined, these five town halls in November and December reached 2,558 news professionals.

• 44 Webinars: These virtual events spanned our four key initiatives (Readers First, Product & Tech, Newsroom Transformation, GenAI) and three world regions (Latin America, South Asia, Africa) – and saw 7,039 registrations, up 41% over last year. Beyond this, Webinars saw 3,359 members attend livestreams and 5,368 recordings were viewed. Some 3,245 INMA members registered for at least one Webinar, and 84 members registered for 10+ Webinars. GenAI was the No. 1 subject for the year, with Webinars averaging 196 registrants. Our fireside chat with OpenAI earlier in the year was our highest registered Webinar at 390. 

So how is INMA delivering across these events? Does the quality match the quantity? In the past decade, INMA’s median Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an astounding 46. In 2024, the median NPS across our 18 paid-for and regional events was 56.

Reports, content, and newsletters 

INMA is a regular presence in the professional lives of members worldwide. 

For example, we produced 777 blogs in the past year, released daily and many of which were written by members. We added 771 searchable and sortable case studies to our Best Practices archive, which now total 8,803 from the past 13 years. 

INMA’s deepest intellectual contributions to the news industry can be found in our reports. In 2024, we published nine reports — three on GenAI, two on subscriptions, and one each on newsroom transformation, how product-led media companies are structured, Gen Z, and constructive journalism. Some 2,652 reports were downloaded by members, and countless more were circulated within companies.

As you can see, INMA does not lack for content. Some have posited the association produces more content than every press association in the world combined. 

Our challenge often is content discovery and distribution. INMA curates and communicates via 18 topical and regional newsletters, with 2,175 members subscribing to at least one (182 members subscribe to 10+ newsletters). Beyond these, INMA members receive a weekly or daily newsletter curating all content — with 3,018 opting in daily.

Chief executives 

INMA has long been a safe space for news media CEOs through confidential engagements, conference stages, and more. 

Yet not until INMA launched a Chatham House rules-based CEO Roundtable in Vail, Colorado, for 50 corporate member leaders in 2023 have we been able to bend all of the association’s learnings for the benefit of the c-suite. 

We were surprised by what we could deliver. We were surprised by the passion (85 NPS). We were surprised by the interactions among participants.

In 2024, we remained … surprised. Nearly half of year one participants attended the second event. The NPS was 90. The buzz emanating from the Roundtable was off the charts.

Programming revolved around INMA’s five initiatives, with creative twists: 

• The strategic impact of GenAI on search and content discovery.

• Managing and leading digital transformation. 

• Likely business models moving forward. 

• GenAI for efficiency. 

• Navigating Big Tech and LLMs. 

• The new focus on brand experience. 

• Newsroom transformation.

The implications of GenAI, business models, and young audiences remain the CEO obsessions, according to Vail participants.

Young professionals 

INMA conducted three projects aimed at young professionals in the past year: 

• Young Professionals Initiative (YPI): In addition to executing a fifth year of the popular “30 Under 30” Awards (from 140 applicants), YPI launched a newsletter aimed at professionals 35 years old and under and provided insights to INMA on young adult reading habits. 

• Emerging Leaders: The association’s North America Division Board launched a year-long “emerging leaders” development and mentorship initiative for 20 professionals across 11 companies focused on the consumer side of the news business. 

• Elevate Scholarships: More for young-ish professionals, INMA awarded 50 scholarships aimed at deserving professionals from under-represented groups.

My engagements

We all sometimes lose perspective on achievements, and I am no different. 

On a flight from Sydney to Dallas in November, it occurred to me that I have engaged in a significant way with INMA members this year. An audit proved it: 40 in-person meetings at member companies, often employee town halls and c-suite engagements.

Thanks to members in Germany, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, India, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand for welcoming me into their professional homes. 

This year marked the return to full-time travel for me — on the road for 124 days. I also conducted seven virtual executive briefings with corporate member c-suites.

Some private considerations

What you see in the totality of what INMA does is only the tip of the iceberg. 

While much of INMA is on public stages, a lot happens behind the scenes. We have an amazing Board of Directors that governs the association’s activities and a small army of 98 volunteers serving on regional boards and advisory committees. And we now have a 30-person staff, including initiative leads, that operates as a fantastic team.

Yet something else happened this year away from the public stages. 

Two subjects dominated private conversations with members around the world: 

• The feeling that their fortunes are less and less in their hands. 

• The role of journalism in connecting with audiences. 

On a recent swing through the Asia/Pacific region, I heard a consistent point communicated to company employees: That the future of media companies and journalism is increasingly out of their direct control and in the hands of far-away technology companies. Notably: 

• Digital advertising’s ecosystem and economic fundamentals are controlled by Google. 

• Content discovery is at the whim of search algorithms, which are being disrupted by AI-driven answer algorithms. 

So many of the battles are happening outside of our proverbial four walls, I was told over and over. They’re happening “over there.” In Silicon Valley. In courtrooms. In legislative corridors. 

Meanwhile, I heard c-suite concerns expressed about the crossroads of news media demonisation and political polarisation: 

• Has journalism’s brand been damaged by a prosecutorial approach to the erosion of political orthodoxy? 

• Does objectivity shift if the communities we serve shift, or is “truth” steadfast and not subject to evolution? 

• Is objectivity a passive observation or an unmoving defense of ownership’s world view? 

• If today’s politics are about motivating our bases and the extremes of society, is truly neutral and passive journalism even an option or a desire of the consuming public? 

• Has the aperture of our journalism become too small for a sustainable business model? 

• Are we stewards of inclusive or exclusive news brands? 

• What, ultimately, makes up the modern news brand?

• Who at news media companies is connecting these dots in the projection of brand? 

To put it in earthier basketball terms, is professional journalism’s emerging role to sit in the stands and observe the game, to stand our ground at center court as the game is played around us, or to play in the flow of society’s game? 

Combined, these are existential issues for news media companies regardless of legacy formats (i.e., newspapers, magazines, television, radio). 

The news industry is not for the faint of heart, as we learned over and over in 2024. To put the game in perspective, the average profit margin of a publicly traded American newspaper in 2020 was 24%. Today, according to INMA research unveiled this year, the median profit margin of 50 member media companies worldwide was 6%. To boot, it was considered an easy 24% a quarter century ago, and it’s a tough 6% today.

If the helplessness about journalism’s economic levers was a cloud hovering over the news industry, 2024 was bolstered by what publishers can control: the hope of subscriptions, the potential game-changing effects of generative AI, and the rising confidence in a digital future. The newsroom’s embrace of that future is a big part of the confidence that is in our hands today.

* * * 

There’s nothing quite like the “INMA conversation” in today’s news industry. It’s a symphony that a board member recently labeled as “magical.” It’s visionary and strategic while simultaneously being insightful and practical. 

I want to wrap up 2024 by thanking you for your participation in and contributions to INMA. 

We will continue to convert ideas to insights … and challenges to opportunities. We will continue to inspire. And we will continue to celebrate. 

In our 94^th year, INMA was and is news media’s community of hope.

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