It’s the time of the year when media organisations are pulling together their round-up articles and prepping end-of-the-year specials.

But what do newsroom employees want for Christmas? Here are five ideas.

Gift one: the mute button for grumpy old men

It’s time to offer staff access to proper numbers that actually reflect the audience you are trying to reach. If you aim for “the young ones,” then tell the newsroom what that crowd actually cares about.

Gift two: the elephant in the newsroom

Top lists are popular, and it’s fun to talk about the stuff that audiences love.

But the elephant in the newsroom is very often all the articles considered important by staff but that doesn’t engage the audience. This can be both the simple stuff curated because of old habits, or stuff deemed important at an earlier date. If you can easily access the least popular articles, you can start the conversation on what needs to be changed and how the newsroom can test new ways to get these pieces read, watched, or listened to.

Gift three: a simple model to boost creativity

If you haven’t already tried it, then it’s a must in 2026.

The user needs model was introduced to the newsroom world by Dmitry Shishkin back in his days at BBC World. Today it’s a very hands-on model for increasing creativity among your reporters.

For us at NTM in Sweden, it fits perfectly with the strategic take of delivering local journalism that our audience finds valuable. If we want our readers to hold on and keep paying, they need more than just frequent updates on stuff our competitors also report on.

Gift four: a true interest in auditing the actual, published journalism

Feedback is important, but let’s be honest: If time is scarce — and breaking news happens — who has time to provide feedback on the storytelling in an article from this morning?

One finding for us from recent years’ work is that we have talked a lot about what we should do but not how it’s done. The INMA Global Media Award-winning “Friendly SWAT-teams” has been invaluable our change in our newsrooms. But remember, you need to create an honest and sincere dialogue. And dare to talk about all the bad stuff too.

Gift five: a lesson in the business of journalism

In the beginning, there was article conversions. The newsroom had just put up a shiny new paywall, and everyone was interested in what kind of articles were actually selling.

But, after a while, many newsrooms and business-to-consumer (B2C) departments could see selling wasn’t the problem. It was the evil churn devil. You kept filling your bucket with fresh subscribers, but they just kept fleeing through the holes in the bottom of the bucket.

Make sure your newsrooms keep their eyes on engaging the audience. This is crucial. A crystal-clear retention focused editorial strategy makes it much easier to decide what to focus on in the newsroom.

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