Help shape our 2025 priorities for the Newsroom Transformation Initiative
Newsroom Transformation Initiative Newsletter Blog | 14 January 2025
Welcome to 2025! For my first newsletter of the year for the Newsroom Transformation Initiative, I’m hoping to harness your collective wisdom.
What topics do you want to see covered? Where will you be focusing your attention? What programs can INMA plan that will help your newsrooms succeed?
Please fill out this survey — I promise it won’t take long! — to give me input and direction. I’d love to hear from you.
And feel free to reach out directly by e-mailing me at amalie.nash@inma.org.
Amalie
P.S. Join me and INMA GenAI Initiative Lead Sonali Verma tomorrow (January 15) for a Webinar on 2025 Trends and Predictions for GenAI in News Media. Free for INMA members; register here.
What are the hottest topics in newsroom transformation?
In my last newsletter of 2024, we heard from members of the Newsroom Transformation Initiative advisory council on their predictions for this year. Now, I’d like to offer some of my thoughts on newsroom transformation in 2025.
Here are four things I think all newsroom leaders should be talking about:
1. More media companies should be looking at user needs: I talked to many news companies last year that have implemented user needs in their organisations — European companies are leaders in this area — and not a single one reported that it made no difference. Quite the opposite.
Media companies that have successfully introduced user needs better understand and grow their audiences, drive stronger business results, and have learned to work smarter, not harder.
Dmitry Shishkin, CEO of Ringier Media International and a user needs expert, wrote in his 2025 Nieman Lab prediction that: “Audience engagement is not just about cultivating your audiences, optimising distribution, or leveraging platforms. It must be at the core of everything you do, beginning with your editorial strategy. … The user needs approach underscores this perfectly …”
I agree, which is why we’re holding a Newsroom Transformation Seminar solely dedicated to user needs at the INMA World Congress in New York this spring. Shameless plug: Sign up here.
2. Narrow in on quality metrics that lead to insights: We talked about this concept in a recent advisory council meeting — it’s not about a series of data points, but instead, it’s about focusing on quality metrics.
Many media companies are drowning in dashboards showing all kinds of metrics: pageviews, unique visitors, time spent, return frequency, traffic sources … the list goes on. But what are the quality metrics that lead to actionable insights?
At Hearst in the United States, they’re now focusing on visits instead of pageviews — because that’s a more stable way of thinking about your audience, said Patty Michalski, Hearst’s senior vice president of content strategy and innovation and a member of my advisory council. She also said Hearst is working to define a tangible metric for newsrooms that measures engagement by subscribers per month.
Bottom line: Different media companies have different business models, and this year is about finding those KPIs that lead to your desired outcomes.
3. It’s past time to think about multimodal storytelling: Finding new ways to tell stories isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a business essential. Consumers used to personalisation in their lives and social media experiences heavy on video aren’t that interested in traditional 1,000-word stories. Yet that remains the default far too often.
Annemarie Dooling, vice president of audience at Gannett in the United States, wrote about the importance of considering formats in her Nieman Lab prediction: “It’s the time to quickly adapt to understanding that our jobs are about providing information in ways that are for the audience’s use cases, not testing the understanding gap of how they use our formats.”
I think newsrooms should be holding themselves accountable to making alternative-format storytelling the norm this year.
4. Collaboration will become even more important: Fierce competition will likely always be a cornerstone of the news media industry, but it’s more important than ever to collaborate. With scarce resources in most newsrooms, collaboration can allow for deeper coverage, improved products, and innovation.
Alexandra Beverfjord, executive vice-president/brands at Aller Media Nordic and CEO at Dagbladet in Norway, touched on this in an exchange we had late last year. She wrote: “Many news organisations are developing their own technologies and solutions, but this often leads to duplicated efforts and inefficiencies. Collaboration — both within media groups and between competitors — is key to achieving cost savings, driving innovation, and countering the dominance of global players.”
Where can you find fellow collaborators this year?
What do you think newsrooms should focus on this year? I’d love to hear it: amalie.nash@inma.org.
Seven predictions from Nieman Lab relevant to newsrooms
Nieman Lab’s annual list of predictions always offers great food for thought for anyone in the media industry, and this year is no exception.
Many of the predictions unsurprisingly center on AI and the role of the media during a second Trump presidency.
All are worth reading, but I’ve curated seven of the predictions here that align closely with newsroom transformation:
Embrace the barbell: “When news organisations try to do everything, they think they’re showing strength, but they’re inadvertently contributing to their own vulnerability. The result is a flood of mediocre content that becomes easier to dismiss, easier to replace with less-credible sources, easier to lose in the noise. It’s time to abandon middling stories and go very short or very long.” — Millie Tran, chief digital content officer at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Data and context makes a comeback: “As more of our digital experiences become mediated by personalisation algorithms and fandoms built around individual content creators, I believe there’s an opportunity in 2025 for information services that give people back a sense of context and overview. … At Yahoo, we’re setting out to build exactly these types of data services: guides that draw on a variety of metrics to help you situate yourself, navigate different walled-garden media spaces, and discover things beyond what algorithms understand to be in your interest graph.” — Robin Kwong, product director for data services at Yahoo News in the United States.
Get beyond the fact-check: “Journalism’s fight against disinformation risks irrelevance if it fails to consider how the human mind processes and reacts to both falsehoods and facts. By understanding these cognitive dynamics, we can design strategies that truly resonate and drive change.” — Cristina Tardáguila, founder of Lupa in Brazil.
Focus on what people actually need: “By focusing on creating news that’s useful, relatable, and tailored to real attention spans, journalism can reclaim its role in people’s lives. In 2025, the goal won’t just be producing great stories — it’ll be making sure those stories reach people in ways that matter to them. That’s how we’ll stay relevant and rebuild trust.” — Lynn Walsh, assistant director of Trusting News.
Embrace influencers as allies: “For years, journalists have resisted collaborating with nontraditional storytellers, believing credibility comes from formal training and a clear divide between the newsroom and outside content creators. But the media landscape has changed. Today’s audiences, especially younger consumers, get their news through platforms dominated by influencers who make even complex topics feel accessible and engaging. Partnering with influencers may require trade-offs, like easing editorial control or adopting a more casual tone. However, these collaborations offer a powerful way to amplify accurate information and combat misinformation.” — Marlon A. Walker, managing editor of local for The Marshall Project in the United States.
The distinct human writer becomes more essential: “This infusion of AI-driven content will make the distinct voice of the human writer more essential than ever. As AI-generated content becomes ubiquitous, the qualities that define human writing — authenticity, emotional depth, and creative intuition — will become even more critical, ensuring that a writer’s presence is felt throughout a narrative.” — Mario García, CEO of García Media.
Your audience team is now your creator team: “If your audience team is still siloed away, powerless to impact your colleagues or readers, your organisation’s chances of survival in these transformative times is slim. Correct course and appoint a chief audience officer to jumpstart the silo-breaking. Where does this transition leave the hundreds of journalists still employed in audience? The best audiencers are busy running head first into what’s next: creator journalists or what Pew calls news influencers.” — Ryan Kellett, a Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow for Journalism Innovation.
Did you read Nieman’s predictions? What stands out to you? Let me know: amalie.nash@inma.org.
Mark your calendars
Upcoming INMA events that shouldn’t be missed:
Creating a Brand Identity to Stand Out, an INMA Webinar featuring James Stephens, executive vice president/brand at Monks. How to create a brand identity across news products to stand out amid a sea of diverse content is the focus of this INMA Product & Tech Initiative Webinar. Register now.
The Playbook for GenAI in the News Media Business, an INMA Webinar featuring Justin Kosslyn and Lukas Görög, AI consultants. The Webinar will look at how best to harness this technology, common mistakes made, and insights from working on GenAI solutions worldwide. Register now.
INMA Media Subscription Summit Week, an in-person event March 10-14 in Amsterdam. Discover the subscription windmill to power your media in 2025 through content, product, marketing, and data. 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.