Behind every newsroom transformation success story is the story of change management. Want to make a bold move and stop your print edition? You need to have strong leadership and a culture willing to change. Want to reorganise your newsroom into two distinct business units with different purposes? You need an adaptable staff ready to take on the challenge.

We talked a lot about change management in my recent Newsroom Transformation Initiative Master Class. And even the case studies that weren’t directly about change management spoke to the underlying need for it to be successful.

I’m rounding up some of the best lessons on change management and how to evolve your content strategy below — and I’d love to hear your success stories, too. Reach me anytime: amalie.nash@inma.org. 

Amalie

P.S.: I’ll be hosting an end-of-year INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative Town Hall to talk about the lessons we learned this year and where we plan to go next year. And I want your input! Sign up for the free town hall and send me your thoughts on next year’s programming: amalie.nash@inma.org.

3 lessons on how to change your newsroom culture

Media leaders from multiple companies offered some of their best advice on change management during the recent Newsroom Transformation Initiative Master Class. 

Here’s what they had to say:

Lesson No. 1: Create a sense of urgency

Eduardo Lindenberg de Azevedo, director of innovation at Rede Gazeta in Brazil, walked the audience through what going digital-only in 2019 taught his organisation about transformation.

“People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings,” he said, citing The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations.

For Rede Gazeta, making the change required a sense of urgency, coalition-building, training and reinforcement. Still, Lindenberg de Azevedo said, actually changing processes and people's minds was much harder than anticipated. 

Build in time and transparency, he said.

Lesson No. 2: Talk not just about what to do but how to do it

NTM, which has 17 newsrooms in Sweden, has a comprehensive newsroom strategy: fewer but better stories, a focus on seven prioritised topics and a goal of reaching 30-to 50-year-olds. 

But the lesson that stuck with me was this: “We have talked a lot about what we should do but not how it’s done.”

Jens Pettersson, head of editorial development at NTM, said that’s where the “friendly SWAT teams” come in. Subject-matter experts from the corporate team work with the newsrooms on a roadmap that leads to an action plan: “Three things to boost the title, which workshops are needed, timeline, and follow-up.”

They identify and discuss the what, of course, but also spend time on the how, leading to better outcomes, Pettersson said.

Lesson No. 3: Release the power of people — and trust that they will deliver

Lena K. Samuelsson, a senior advisor for Schibsted, has been at the forefront of newsroom transformation in several of her roles and had a lot of great advice. That included:

• Stay true: Change but invest in what makes you distinct.

• Be open … most things are not a secret.

• Create a common ground, and then you can move together.

• Be bold: We’re up to some tough competition.

I especially loved her advice on empowering those around her. She said to seek out the change agents, and others will come along.

“We have to put people together with all kinds of competencies,” she said. “Trust people and they will deliver. They always do.”

What’s your best advice for making change? Tell me about it: amalie.nash@inma.org.

3 lessons to help you shape your content strategy

Want some inspiration on evolving your content strategy to be more audience-centric and data-focused? The Newsroom Transformation Master Class had some great insights and case studies. 

Here’s what stuck with me:

Lesson No. 1: Don’t assume your audience has deep knowledge of subjects

This theme came up several times in the master class, with Emma Löfgren, senior digital news editor at The Local and a writer for The Fix, sharing this quote: “Assume that your audience is very intelligent but not very knowledgeable.” 

Too much of our content assumes the reader already has the background and knowledge to understand the topic or event. We must make our content more accessible for our audiences — and bonus if we’re doing it in multimodal storytelling formats. 

What’s an example of what we’re talking about? 

Dmitry Shishkin, CEO of Ringier Media International in Switzerland, previously worked for the BBC and said he talked to younger people who didn’t engage with Middle East coverage because the level of entry into that coverage is very hard.

“We bombard people with news but don’t stop to explain the context,” he said. 

Lesson No. 2: Connect your content strategy to your mission and to your audience

This theme speaks to user needs, the popular concept of better understanding what people want from journalism and responding by tailoring your content to those needs.

Without user needs, Shishkin said, you will be creating the “wrong type of content for the wrong audiences at the wrong volumes.”

Before you determine topics and formats, you must understand what your audience’s needs are, Shishkin said. User needs are nothing but angles to a story, he said.

His advice: Define how the user needs model contributes to KPIs and key traffic metrics and establish expected impacts.

“It’s also really important to discuss mistakes publicly,” he said.

Lesson No. 3: Make sure you have KPIs for your content, not PIs

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of gleaning insights from data — without those actionable insights, all you have is numbers.

Josh Awtry, senior vice president/audience for Newsweek in the United States, recommended having as few metrics as possible to steer you in the right direction. Key performance metrics, not simply performance metrics.

“Too many operations democratize KPIs — and when there are 13 target numbers, there are zero target numbers,” he said.

Awtry also suggested studying the connective tissue in the data, meaning you don’t simply want to look at the performance of one piece of content independently and make decisions based on that. Look for patterns. 

“Most KPIs are lagging indicators or results,” Awtry said. “Create a series of actions that can be taken at each stage to move people to the next stage.”

Does any of this resonate with you? E-mail me: amalie.nash@inma.org.

Mark your calendars

Check out these free upcoming town halls for INMA’s initiatives:

• November 13: GenAI Initiative Town Hall. INMA will present a report card to members and the news industry at large on how generative AI is rewriting the operations and best practices of news media companies. Register now.

• November 20: Product & Tech Initiative Town Hall. What product and tech is telling publishers about organisations, product branding, user experience, and matching content with people at the right time is the focus of an end-of-year Product & Tech Town Hall. Register now.

• December 4: Subscriptions Town Hall. INMA will distill key learnings from its Readers First Initiative into a single two-hour town hall. We will report to members and the news industry at large key takeaways and analyse them with hand-picked experts. Register now.

• December 11: CMS Town Hall. Expanding on the CMS Vendor Selection Tool unveiled by INMA and the Google News Initiative last year, go deeper into CMS with an all-new landscape view of the CMS market. Register now.

• December 16: Newsroom Transformation Initiative Town Hall. INMA will spotlight and reinforce insights and lessons learned through the year — from the importance of measuring the right data to centering audience in your content strategy. Register now.

About this newsletter

Today’s newsletter is written by Amalie Nash, based in Denver, Colorado, United States, and lead for the INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative. Amalie will share research, case studies, and thought leadership on the topic of bringing newsrooms into the business of news.

This newsletter is a public face of the Newsroom Transformation Initiative by INMA, outlined here. E-mail Amalie at amalie.nash@inma.org or connect with her on INMA’s Slack channel with thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

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