Our competition is not another news outlet in Philadelphia, it’s the 24 hour clock, it’s Netflix, it’s YouTube, it’s scrolling through Instagram. So how are you going to break through in someone’s day, so that they feel compelled to read your content, and further compelled to pay for that content. We think about this in terms of our content strategy in the newsroom, we strive to be useful, revealing and responsive, that’s the lens that we look through what we produce.

– Lisa Hughes, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Guest: Lisa Hughes, Publisher, The Philadelphia Inquirer

How can magazines and newspapers innovate to attract and keep subscribers in an increasingly competitive landscape? What must news and magazine publishers do to continue to keep their readers engaged over the long-term?

In this episode of News Take, Lisa Hughes, the first female Publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, joins News/Media Alliance VP, Research & Insights, Rebecca Frank, for an insightful conversation about the evolution of magazine and newspaper media during a time of rapid change. Hughes shares how she’s led with innovation at top magazine and news publications to introduce successful new products and brands that have kept readers and subscribers coming back for more. She talks about her very first experiences working in the magazine publishing business, and how she rose through the ranks to become a top executive at The New Yorker and Condé Nast Traveler before making the transition to Philadelphia’s flagship newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, where four weeks in she found herself brand new and having to adapt and respond amid a nationwide shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She shares how innovative strategies and products, including live blogs, newsletters and gamification have been successful in driving audience engagement, as well as the potential of new platforms such as TikTok for meeting audiences where they are. She also talks about the risks and opportunities that come with new technologies such as generative AI and where she sees the technology having the most potential to optimize the reader experience.

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Speaker bio:

Lisa Hughes is Publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer. As Publisher, Hughes brings to the role an impressive track record, having successfully transitioned an iconic print brand into a multi-platform, profitable business. Hughes is the first woman Publisher and Chief Executive Officer in The Inquirer’s 190-year history. Hughes is known as a skilled business executive who values and respects journalism. Under her nine-year leadership, The New Yorker, owned by Condé Nast, grew from a largely print-only magazine into a multimedia enterprise. Over the past decade, The New Yorker revamped its website and paid digital content strategy and built award-winning mobile apps. Hughes launched the acclaimed New Yorker Radio Hour and Podcast, and restructured The New Yorker Festival into a profitable business. She left the company at the end of 2017. Prior to The New Yorker, Hughes served as VP Publisher of Condé Nast Traveler for 10 years, steering that magazine through the most successful period in its history.

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Send your suggestions for future News Take guests to Alliance VP, Research & Insights Rebecca Frank at rebecca@newsmediaalliance.org.

News Take Production Team:

Host and Executive Producer: Rebecca Frank, VP, Research & Insights, News/Media Alliance

Production Support, Editing & Distribution:

Georgi-Ann Clarke, Social Media & Content Manager, News/Media Alliance
Rachel Fox, Manager, Membership & Events, News/Media Alliance
Lindsey Loving, Director, Communications, News/Media Alliance

Audio & Video Engineer: Current Media Group

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The post News Take Episode 203: Pioneering Innovation at Legacy Magazine and News Media Brands appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

“As a newsroom leader… live on your toes, on the balls of your feet, which makes it a lot easier for you to pivot. When that ideology permeates an entire shop, it becomes very easy to move. Because everybody is basically casting pebbles into the same lake – all of those pebbles ripple, and the ripples connect, and so you’re seeing the transformation spread, which is very exciting because cultural transformation is hard to make it stick. If you don’t do it right, then the movement stops when we leave where we are. And so cultural transformation only happens when people individually decide to commit and you hit a critical mass of those agents of change across one organization.”

– Samantha Ragland, American Press Institute

Guests: Samantha Ragland and Elite Truong, American Press Institute

What is cultural transformation, and how do publishers know if they’re doing it right? How can publishers cultivate real and lasting cultural change in newsrooms? How does cultural transformation in the newsroom translate to the content produced and thereby the relationships newsrooms have with members of their communities? 

In this episode of News Take, News/Media Alliance VP, Research & Insights, Rebecca Frank sits down with Samantha Ragland, Vice President of Journalism Programs and Elite Truong, Vice President of Product Strategy, both at the American Press Institute, for a candid and fascinating conversation about the work API is doing with news publishers to help them look at their organizations with a critical eye and evolve to better reflect the communities they serve and respond to their needs. They talk about their work with newsroom leaders on DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging), promoting and fostering a sustainable news organization from the inside out, and encouraging a culture of experimentation in the newsroom. Finally, they share lessons learned from API’s Table Stakes program and Inclusion Index, as well as their data centric tools for publishers, Metrics for News and Source Matters, and offer tips for how other news publishers can use data and related guidance at their own organizations to spark transformation.

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“We want to encourage folks who understand that if you want to get anything out of working with other folks and learning all of these lessons… you have to put some work in to be able to see some rewards, which is not revolutionary, but … it’s difficult to try to make space for all of the different things when you’re responsible for so much, but I think there’s always a little bit of room to look at ‘What can I let go of so I can invite more modern strategy in, or think about the long-term strategy once in a while.”

– Elite Truong, American Press Institute

Speaker bios

Samantha Ragland is Vice President of Journalism Programs at the American Press Institute. Previously, Ragland was a member of the faculty at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies where she also served as director of the Leadership Academy for Women in Media. As VP of Journalism Programs, Ragland leads API’s efforts to promote cultural transformation and business sustainability in media, helping news organizations serve diverse readers and communities more effectively. She leads API’s journalism programs portfolio, including The Table Stakes Local News Transformation program, Beyond Print, API’s work on diversity and inclusion in newsrooms and change management coaching for news companies of all sizes. While at Poynter, Ragland created custom workshops based on newsroom needs, including trauma and resiliency training developed in collaboration with clinical psychologists. She was also co-director of the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship program for early-career reporters. Ragland previously led digital content strategy at the USA Today Network and managed digital storytelling at The Palm Beach Post. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Western Kentucky University. She’s an active member of and coach for digitalwomenleaders.com.

Elite Truong is Vice President of Product Strategy at the American Press Institute. She manages the existing API product portfolio, which includes Metrics for News, an analytics tool that aligns journalism metrics with an organization’s editorial values and business model, and Source Matters, a tool that allows publishers to track and improve the diversity of their organizations. As head of the Product Strategy team, she helps strengthen and expand the product portfolio, while also serving as a product coach and thought leader for the news industry. Elite is also the board secretary of the News Product Alliance, a nascent community of support and practice for news product thinkers. Elite most recently worked as director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post, where she led the newsroom R&D team to create projects and products driven by emerging technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence and 3D and augmented reality. Before joining The Post, Elite spent four years at Vox Media, three as the product manager for off-platform storytelling. Elite has been an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, where she created and taught an entrepreneurship class for journalism students. Elite earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Roosevelt University. She is a member of the Asian-American Journalists Association and the Online News Association, where she taught as guest faculty and coached participants in the Women’s Leadership Accelerator.

Related Links:

Inclusion Index report: Assessing the Pittsburgh news ecosystem’s commitment to DEIB

Metrics for News

Source Matters

Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program

Watch the previous episode of News Take

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Send your suggestions for future News Take guests to Alliance VP, Research & Insights Rebecca Frank at rebecca@newsmediaalliance.org.

News Take Production Team:

Host and Executive Producer: Rebecca Frank, VP, Research & Insights, News/Media Alliance

Production Support, Editing & Distribution:

Georgi-Ann Clarke, Social Media & Content Manager, News/Media Alliance
Rachel Fox, Manager, Membership & Events, News/Media Alliance
Lindsey Loving, Director, Communications, News/Media Alliance

Audio & Video Engineer: Current Media Group

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The post News Take Episode 202: How the American Press Institute is Inspiring Cultural Transformation in News Media appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

“The Internet had the great characteristic of allowing everybody to be a publisher, but that was also the worst thing; everybody could become a publisher. From the point of view of news consumers, that meant it had become virtually impossible for people to tell the difference between a generally reliable … and generally trustworthy site, versus an untrustworthy site.”

– Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard

Guest: Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard

What are the dangers of an open Web where anyone can be a publisher? How do misinformation sites harm reputable news publishers? How are current economic and geopolitical conditions impacting the online information ecosystem? What is a News Nutrition Label and, if consumers can’t tell the difference, how are publishers of quality journalism distinguished from misinformation, hoax and pink slime news sites? How has programmatic advertising contributed to the misinformation crisis and how can advertisers ensure site integrity when buying ad space? 

In the Season 2 premiere of News Take, News/Media Alliance VP, Research & Insights, Rebecca Frank sits down with Gordon Crovitz, co-founder and co-CEO of NewsGuard, about how his company is working to mitigate threats from online misinformation sites, which are often indistinguishable from real news sites. Gordon explains how the online environment has enabled the rampant spread of fake news and mis- and disinformation via hoax, pink slime and other sites that publish false and potentially harmful misinformation. He then shares how publishers, consumers, advertisers and other businesses, and government agencies can improve their awareness and identification of these sites to minimize their impact. In addition, he describes how news publishers can use NewsGuard’s Nutrition Labels to promote their credibility, both with readers as sources of accurate and trustworthy information, as well as with marketers as brand safe environments for their advertising.

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Speaker bios

Gordon Crovitz is co-founder and Co-CEO of NewsGuard, which counters misinformation online on behalf of news consumers, brands and democracies. NewsGuard analysts rate and create Nutrition Labels for news and information websites, using basic, apolitical criteria of journalistic practice. Its ratings and labels are used by news-literacy partners including technology companies such as Microsoft and libraries, schools and misinformation researchers.

Gordon was publisher of The Wall Street Journal, where he was also the Rule of Law and Information Age columnist, and spent nearly 30 years at Dow Jones and the Journal, based in New York, Hong Kong and Brussels. He was CEO of learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He was co-founder of Press+ (sold to RR Donnelley), a technology company that enables publishers to generate digital subscription revenues. Crovitz graduated from the University of Chicago and received law degrees from Oxford University and Yale Law School.

Related Links:

Get NewsGuard for Microsoft Edge 

Watch the next episode: How the American Press Institute is Inspiring Cultural Transformation in News Media

Watch the previous episode: Lessons in Practicality from The Daily Memphian: “A Lot of People Don’t Know We’re a Nonprofit”

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Send us your suggestions

Send your suggestions for future News Take guests to Alliance VP, Research & Insights Rebecca Frank at rebecca@newsmediaalliance.org.

News Take Production Team:

Host and Executive Producer: Rebecca Frank, VP, Research & Insights, News/Media Alliance

Production Support, Editing & Distribution:

Georgi-Ann Clarke, Social Media & Content Manager, News/Media Alliance
Rachel Fox, Manager, Membership & Events, News/Media Alliance
Lindsey Loving, Director, Communications, News/Media Alliance

Audio & Video Engineer: Current Media Group

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The post News Take Episode 201: News Nutrition Labels: How NewsGuard is Helping Fight Misinformation Online appeared first on News/Media Alliance.