Hello from Miami, Florida! I had the pleasure of attending the Knight Media Forum in recent days, a gathering of more than 1,100 civic leaders, philanthropic funders, journalists, scholars, industry experts, and government officials exploring how we can cultivate self-determination and a shared sense of community.

We covered a lot of ground, including lessons applicable to newsroom transformation. I was particularly interested in a panel on “Who gets to be called a journalist in 2025?” Read on for more on that and other takeaways. I’d love to hear from you, too: amalie.nash@inma.org. 

Amalie

P.S. My next Webinar is Wednesday. “The Future of Fact-Checking in News Organisations,” features Aaron Sharockman, executive director at Politifact, and Angie Drobnic Holan, director at the International Fact-Checking Network. Register now.

What we can learn from news influencers

More than one in five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on social media, according to a study from the Pew-Knight Initiative.

Of those, 65% say news influencers have helped them better understand current events and civic issues, and 31% say they feel personally connected to a news influencer. And those under 30 are nearly as likely to trust information they get from social media as they are to trust traditional news.

Yet traditional media isn’t talking enough about content creators: what we can learn from them about building audience and connections and whether we should be partnering more with these creators.

At Knight Media Forum in Miami, I attended a panel on “Who gets to be called a journalist in 2025?” From the session pitch: “Explore how creator-journalists can bring rigor to their storytelling — and what traditional journalism can learn from their innovative approaches to building trust and engagement.”

Becca Farsace is among the 23% of content creators — that’s how she thinks of herself — who have a traditional journalism background. She worked at The Verge until deciding she wanted to branch out on her own to create more authentic relationships with her audience.

“I know my audience, and we are building something together,” Farsace said. “I know what kind of content they want to see because I ask and listen and hear from them. Instead of people being on a journey with The Verge, they are now on my journey.”

Liz Kelly Nelson, founder of Project C and the session moderator, is a trained journalist who now works with content creators. She said traditional journalists need to better understand that space. Content creators, she said, have big and bold ideas, are faster to adapt to change, and more attuned to younger audiences.

“News organisations can use lessons from the creator model,” she said.

In traditional media, I’ve heard concerns over trust — the idea that audiences trust your established brand and may be leery of trusting untrained influencers. In other words, if a journalist works for The New York Times, a reader can trust the establishment and its proven accuracy and rigor as opposed to an individual broadcasting from their own platform.

However, it’s important to understand trust from the perspective of the audience.

Katerina Eva Matsa, director of News and Information Research at Pew Research Center, said some readers certainly trust traditional institutions — but others are less likely to trust an institution over a person who isn’t considered part of the so-called biased mainstream media.

“Journalists often work for institutions that to us are trustworthy, but for some people, the creator is like a trusted friend,” said Joy Mayer, executive director of Trusting News. “This is not that different from citizen journalists or ‘bloggers’ from the past. I worry we’re trying to form an exclusive club of who does and doesn’t belong, and that’s not how our audience sees it.”

So what are we talking about when we discuss news influencers? A few examples worth checking out — and these are more traditional than many content creators out there:

• Jessica Yellin’s News not Noise. The former CNN reporter now runs a Substack and Instagram page breaking down the news.

• Marisa Kabas’ The Handbasket, billed as 100% independent journalism.

• Edison Lopez’s TikTok channel. He started publishing videos at the age of 17 and now has almost 900K followers.

Finally, here’s a resource that published this month and may be useful: Mapping your local influencer landscape

Would love your thoughts on news influencers and how you are approaching that landscape: amalie.nash@inma.org.

API introduces Digital Transformation Guide

The American Press Institute for several years ran a Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program for news organisations, working with them to tackle important challenges and manage continuous change.

From that work comes API’s new Digital Transformation Guide, which breaks down a series of themes key to transformation — product thinking, revenue, engaged journalism, collaboration, and managing change.

All are worth exploring in the guide, but I’ll focus on engaged journalism and managing change for this piece as they align most closely with newsroom transformation.

Emily Ristow, director of journalism strategy for API, said the goal of the guide is “to highlight replicable strategies that we know will be successful in local news, putting them in the context of the larger industry; share specific examples of success with these strategies through bite-sized case studies; and leave readers with interactive resources like worksheets and checklists to help them begin to apply these strategies immediately in their organisations.”

Practicing engaged journalism: “Engaged journalism is an inclusive practice that prioritises the information needs and wants of the community members it serves, creates collaborative space for the audience in all aspects of the journalistic process, and is dedicated to building and preserving trusting relationships between journalists and the public,” says Lindsay Green-Barber of Impact Architects.

In other words, better listening to your audience and delivering what they want. Yet many news organisations aren’t there yet. I asked Ristow why she thinks that is.

“I think getting buy-in for engaged journalism can be difficult for several reasons,” she said. 

Among them: “It likely requires a mindset shift and your organisation rethinking some of its fundamental processes — how are you deciding what’s newsworthy, how are you establishing community listening practices, how are you creating collaborative spaces with your audience, and how are you offering opportunities for feedback and acting on what you learn? One organisation featured in the report, The Kansas City Star, described engaged journalism as like making your community your assigning editor. That description demonstrates well the kind of shift that’s necessary.”

Putting your audience first, Ristow said, is shifting your thinking from, “We know best because we are the journalism experts,” to “What are we hearing and learning from our community about how we can best serve them? It speaks to the importance of engaged journalism.”

Managing people through change: This is a topic we discuss regularly in the Newsroom Transformation Initiative, and I appreciate the Table Stakes’ usage of the Formula for Change developed by Eric Abramson of Columbia Business School:

                                             Change = D x V x P

• D is the dissatisfaction with the current state (this dissatisfaction or motivation, for a more positive spin, is unique to each person — as a leader, your dissatisfaction may not be the same as your team members’).

• V is a clear, shared vision of the future.

• P is a process that provides a way forward and clears obstacles.

Where do leaders often get stuck in this process? 

“I think most individuals — and therefore most teams, depending on their makeup — naturally lean toward being stronger in vision (big ideas) or process (detail-oriented),” Ristow said. “Most people and teams can identify which part they’re weaker on and find a system for balancing things out once they realise how critical both elements are for implementing lasting change.

“The sticking point for most people is this idea of dissatisfaction because it has to be others’ dissatisfaction, not your own. That dissatisfaction is going to vary from person to person, depending on their role within the organisation, their tenure there and their values, among other reasons. Some leaders won’t take the time to truly listen to others and to try to understand this from multiple perspectives. Others might find it difficult to accept what they’re hearing — that dissatisfaction could be with leadership, for example, or with industry factors outside their control. 

“It can sometimes be helpful for people to put a more positive spin on dissatisfaction and think about how they can tap into people’s motivations or provide hope in contrast to those dissatisfactions.” 

Check out the Digital Transformation Guide. Rostow recommends diving into whatever strategy you’re most drawn to as a starting point — acquaint yourself with the tactics in that section and pick one to try first, using the resources in the “try this” section.

If you read the guide, let me know what you took away from it: amalie.nash@inma.org.

Mark your calendars

Upcoming INMA events that shouldn’t be missed:

• February 26: “The Future of Fact-Checking in News Organisations,” presented by Aaron Sharockman, executive director at Politifact, Angie Drobnic Holan, director at the International Fact-Checking Network. Moderated by me. Register now.

• March 5: “How to Better Communicate Audience Insights to Your Newsroom,” presented by Fernanda Braune Brackenrich, U.S. editor/audience engagement at Financial Times, and Tess Jeffers, director of newsroom data and AI at The Wall Street Journal. Moderated by me. Register now.

• March 10-14: INMA Media Subscription Summit Week, an in-person event from March 10-14 in Amsterdam. Discover the subscription windmill to power your media in 2025 through content, product, marketing, and data. Register now.

• March 19: “Effective Strategies for GenAI in Advertising,” featuring Michael McCarthy, senior director of AI, sales, and business solutions at Hearst Newspapers, and Katherine Scarrow, deputy head of Globe Content Studio at The Globe and Mail. 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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