Guest: Feli Carrique, Executive Director, News Product Alliance

“Anything that you build or create for an audience to solve a user need and support your organizational mission, is a product.”  

– Feli Carrique, News Product Alliance

What is news product and product thinking, and why is it important in journalism? How can newsrooms begin to incorporate product thinking into their content? What are the challenges to adopting a product mindset?

On this episode of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern talks with Executive Director of the News Product Alliance, Feli Carrique, about news product and the increasingly popular practice of product thinking in journalism and news publishing. In this informative discussion, Feli explains what news product and product thinking is, as well as how having a product mindset and putting the reader first can help improve content engagement and performance. She also shares some of the biggest challenges to adopting product thinking, as well as some of the things that excite her the most about the use of product thinking and where it has the potential to make the biggest impact.

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Speaker bio

Feli Carrique is the Executive Director of the News Product Alliance, a community for people who strategically align business, audience and technology goals while integrating journalism ethics. Feli is an Argentinian journalist and product thinker working at the intersection of media, technology, and sustainability. In her previous role as Innovation Director at SembraMedia, she worked with news organizations across Latin America, Spain, and the United States to promote innovation and led product design and systems development for the organization. She was also the lead analyst on the recent “Inflection Point International” report published by SembraMedia, which analyzed the innovations, challenges, and threats facing news entrepreneurs across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.  Feli is also a Professor at the Catholic University of Argentina, where she co-created the first news product class in Latin America.

Related:

News Product Alliance Product Kit

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Guest: Julien Genestoux, founder and CEO, Unlock

“I think right now the web is ‘sick’ of its business model, from the fact that we monetize everything for attention. … What blockchain brings us is actually the ability to think about alternative business models, the ability to think about things in other ways, to say OK, who owns what piece of content, how it is owned, who gets access to what, and do that in a transparent protocol way rather than a platform-owned way.”    

– Julien Genestoux, Unlock

What is blockchain and how do NFTs work? How can news publishers use blockchain to grow revenue? What would a membership model based on NFTs look like, and what benefits could it offer over the traditional advertising revenue model? What is Web3 and why do we need it?

On this edition of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern talks with founder and CEO of Unlock, Julien Genestoux, about the potential opportunities and uses of blockchain technology by news publishers. In this candid discussion that takes a critical look at the current state of the Web, Julien reviews the basics of blockchain and why it could offer a more secure and more exciting alternative to the attention-based, platform-driven experiences found on today’s Web. He then provides a look at what lies beyond the initial applications, to the potential of blockchain specifically for news publishers, for purposes such as monetizing content and using NFTs in membership models.

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Speaker bio

Julien Genestoux is founder and CEO of Unlock, an access control protocol built on a blockchain that enables creators to monetize their content or software without relying on a middleman. He describes himself as an entrepreneur, unconditional web advocate, and a hacker. He has built two profitable start-ups, one of which was Superfeedr, which became one of the leading real-time web APIs and was later acquired by Medium. At Medium, he led the company’s SEO effort and quadrupled the share of traffic it receives from search. He co-authored the W3C WebSub protocol and spoke at numerous international conferences and events. He talks about NFTs, Web3, crypto and the Open Web.

For more information about Unlock:

Contact Julien: @Julien51 on Twitter and Julien Genestoux on Facebook and LinkedIn

Visit the Unlock website

Watch the next episode: Committing to Product Thinking in the News Industry: Putting Readers First 

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Guest: Carlos Martinez de la Serna, Program Director, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

“For journalists outside of Ukraine, regardless of where they are from, they still play a critical role because the world needs to pay attention to that, and they’re explaining that to their audiences in way that is easier for them to understand the nuances and the problems of the conflict. They’re bearing witness, and we need as many witnesses as possible for something like this. For today, and for the record, for generations to come.”
– Carlos Martinez de la Serna, Committee to Protect Journalists

Typically, News Take is where we talk about the latest innovation and get into the weeds about trends taking place in the news media industry. But in this episode, we turned to a more serious topic, which is how journalists are covering the war Russia is waging against the Ukraine.

Since Russia’s first attacks on Ukraine in late February, dozens of journalists have been injured or killed while reporting on the war. Journalists are literally risking their lives to bring the latest news and information about the war to people around the world. So while we could talk about the latest news products, the dire situation in the Ukraine is really the biggest thing happening in the world right now, and what we do as news publishers literally impacts what people know and how people perceive the war, so we felt it needed and deserved our attention here.

On this special edition of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern talks with Carlos Martinez de la Serna, Program Director, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who shares details about the situation on the ground in the Ukraine, including the environment for journalists; the threats to press freedom in the Ukraine and Russia (as well as around the world); the role of journalists from other countries reporting on the war; how journalists are navigating and combating misinformation and propaganda about the war; how they are staying safe; and what we can do to help.

This episode was recorded on April 21, 2022.

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Speaker bio

Carlos Martinez de la Serna has been with CPJ since 2018. Prior to CPJ, he worked as a reporter and digital journalist in the U.S., Spain, and Japan, covering issues including current affairs, biomedical research, and North Korea’s nuclear program. He is a founding member of the mapping startup Carto, co-founder of the nonprofit organization porCausa, and a former director of digital innovation at Univision News. Martinez de la Serna is a research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and a former John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University.

Watch the next episode: Tapping Into the Potential of Blockchain for News Publishers 

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Guest: Mitra Kalita, co-founder and CEO, URL Media

“From a mission perspective, we did not want Black and Brown audiences to be only charitable endeavors. We see our people as a very important, vital, necessary market.” – Mitra Kalita, URL Media

You know you were meant to be a journalist when, as a pre-teen, you created a newspaper to protest your parents’ decision to move your family from Puerto Rico to New Jersey! That is exactly how Mitra Kalita, co-founder and CEO of URL Media, got her start in journalism.

On this episode of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern and Kalita have a heartfelt discussion about her journey from being a busy CNN Digital executive to starting her own newsletter, Epicenter-NYC, and media company, URL  Media, in Jackson Heights, New York City amidst a pandemic and racial justice movement. During this light-hearted and honest talk, Kalita shares how she and her business partner were able to achieve instant scale, launching the URL Media network with seven million users, and how they’ve embraced a for-profit business model at a time when many similar groups were launching as nonprofits. In addition, she shares advice for improving diversity in content as well as in the newsroom, including ensuring changes to improve DE&I are lasting and become a part of the organization culture.

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Speaker bio

Mitra Kalita is a veteran journalist, media executive, commentator and author of two books. She is the co-founder/ CEO of URL Media, a network of Black and Brown community news outlets that share content and revenue. URL Media works with mainstream newsrooms to syndicate content and partner on diversity initiatives in content, staffing and culture. She is co-founder and publisher of Epicenter-NYC, a newsletter designed to help New Yorkers get through the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the newsletters The Unmuted and The Escape Home.

Previously, Mitra was Senior Vice President at CNN Digital, overseeing the national news, breaking news, programming, opinion and features teams. She also worked in leadership roles at the Los Angeles Times and Quartz. She sits on a number of journalism industry boards, most notably, the board of the News Media Alliance.

Related links

URL Media

Epicenter-NYC

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Guest: Kim Bui, Director of Product & Audience Innovation, Arizona Republic

“The product side is a personal interest of mine in that it really is the ‘how’ – I love looking at how we can tell better stories, how we can integrate better with our audience’s lives, listen to them, become more useful, and really get away from the pedestal style journalism that has ended up with us not being trusted by a majority of people.” – Kim Bui, Arizona Republic

What comes first, the product or the user? How do we close the gap between the addressable market and market penetration? What are ways to use newsletters and text notifications to get personal with readers? How can we position ourselves now with younger readers and Gen Z readers as a useful news source? What are the “winners” in the news product space doing that we are not?

On this episode of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern chatted with Kim Bui, Director of Product and Audience Innovation at the Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com, about how to leverage the latest trends in digital products to connect with your audience and be useful to them, while at the same time building trust and emphasizing community-centered journalism. The conversation flows into a discussion of the evolving workplace and how Kim’s columns, “Sincerely, Leaders of Color” and “The Middles” reflect the importance of improving diversity in news media and providing education to those emerging leaders who are navigating unfamiliar management and leadership roles.

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Speaker bio

Kim Bui is the director of product and audience innovation at the Arizona Republic. She’s focused her career on leading real-time news initiatives and creating new storytelling forms for digital, print and broadcast companies catering to local, national and global audiences. Prior, she was editor-at-large for NowThis News, focusing on original, social reporting and breaking news. She was also deputy managing editor for reported.ly, a digital media startup specializing in social journalism. She’s been a speaker, trainer and teacher on digital and social journalism at universities, conferences and gatherings worldwide. She writes a syndicated newsletter for emerging leaders and managers, The Middles.

Related reading

Sincerely, Leaders of Color

The Middles

The Key to Gen Z: Insights and Ideas to Build Lasting Relationships

Watch the next episode: Encouraging and Sustaining Diversity in News Media

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Guests: Aram Zucker-Scharff, The Washington Post

“For the first time, we actually have the potential to create a real shift that benefits our users, our business, and our society, and that’s a win, win, win.” – Aram Zucker-Scharff on the shift to contextual-based targeting

Ad tech, Privacy and Performance, oh my! News publishers working to adapt to a privacy-first digital landscape before the inevitable end of the third-party cookie can easily become overwhelmed and may not even know where to start.

What does the shift towards privacy mean for news publishers and how they approach ad targeting? Is decreased reliance on third-party tracking a good thing for the industry? What are Core Web Vitals and why should news publishers care? How does my news site’s performance tie in to reader trust? What are things publishers can do right now to improve site performance? What is W3C and how can publishers take advantage to get their voices heard?

These questions and more will be discussed on this episode of News Take. News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern had an energizing conversation with Aram Zucker-Scharff, Engineering Lead for Privacy & Security Compliance at The Washington Post, that got in-the-weeds about the kitchen sink of ad tech topics, including site monetization; improving privacy and the user experience; optimizing site performance using Core Web Vitals; and more.

This episode was so full of interesting facts and actionable insights, we didn’t want it to end. The nuggets of wisdom will come faster than you can write them down, so it’s a good thing this conversation was recorded and you can re-watch it to your heart’s content!

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Speaker bio

Aram Zucker-Scharff is the Engineering Lead for Privacy & Security Compliance at The Washington Post, where he works with publishers to maximize site performance and revenue. He has also worked on The Post’s Ad Tech R&D and Big Data teams. Aram has developed open-source tools for publishers and consulted on content strategy and digital newsroom workflows. He was one of Folio Magazine’s 15 under 30 in the magazine media industry.

Related reading

“Why The Ad Industry Should Care About Core Web Vitals – And The Impact For Publishers Who Ignore The Dreaded ‘Layout Shift’” (AdExchanger) – by Amanda Hicks, director of product for The Washington Post’s Research, Experimentation & Development (RED) team.

Watch the next episode: Leveraging Products to Connect with Your Audience

Watch the previous episode: Local News: Understanding What Readers Want and How to Deliver it to Them

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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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Guests: Jim Bernard, Star Tribune and Mike Orren, The Dallas Morning News

Is there such a thing as a typical reader or subscriber? What role does the e-Paper play in the transition to digital (and why did our speakers initially despise the product)? Do new storytelling formats such as podcasts and social media present viable business models, and how can news publishers successfully venture into this space? What are news publishers getting right on the tech side, and where do they still need to improve?

In this episode of News Take, News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern sits down with Jim Bernard, Senior Vice President for Digital at the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune and Mike Orren, Chief Product Officer at The Dallas Morning News for a candid conversation about the challenges and opportunities that arise from understanding your readers and subscribers and how to give them what they want (and when, where and how they want it) – all while prioritizing revenue (because at the end of the day, newspapers need to sell subscriptions). From the differences between print and digital subscribers and their desires, preferences, and behaviors, to why the e-Edition is a valuable product, to approaches to experimenting with new forms of storytelling (including audio and video), to their most exciting plans for 2022, Orren and Bernard draw from their leadership experience to offer insights on navigating the constantly changing news consumption landscape.

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Speaker bios

Mike Orren is the Chief Product Officer at The Dallas Morning News, leading the teams responsible for all digital products, marketing, business intelligence, and digital audience. Prior to that, he was President at Belo Business Intelligence, where he leads marketing, analytics, product development, strategy and sales infrastructure for A.H. Belo Corporation, publisher of The Dallas Morning News. He founded Pegasus News, the largest single-market digital news pure-play in the US in 2005, eventually selling it to a publicly-traded broadcast company. Mike has served in senior roles at American Lawyer Media and D Magazine (where he launched the first city magazine website). His work has been recognized with awards from Editor & Publisher, The Dallas Press Club, the North Carolina Press Association and The Dallas Business Journal. Mike is a graduate of Duke University.

Jim Bernard is Star Tribune’s senior vice president for digital with responsibility for the company’s portfolio of digital properties and operations, including StarTribune.com – the state’s most-visited website with 7 million unique visitors each month. He also oversees dozens of other digital products, including Star Tribune mobile apps, print “replica” edition, CityPages.com and 19 Minnesota high school sports websites. Jim joined Star Tribune in 2010 from Dow Jones MarketWatch and prior to MarketWatch, he held a series of executive positions with Dow Jones. Jim earned his MBA from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Iowa.

Watch the next episode: Tech Trends: What Publishers Need to Know

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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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When you think of audio news, one of three things probably comes to mind: radio, podcasts or headlines read via smart speaker. But some news outlets are trying something new — audio articles. Audio articles are recordings of single stories already published as written content. Instead of accessing them through a podcast app, the stories are often made available on the webpage right alongside the print stories.

One company that has seen success with audio articles is The Atlantic. Known for their longform print journalism and their popular monthly magazine, The Atlantic has a sizable audience. Between their magazine, digital journalism and podcasts, they reach millions of people each month. But as most publishers know, it’s important to reach audiences where they are. For The Atlantic, that meant finding new ways to make their in-depth coverage even more accessible.

While audio articles may sound a lot like podcasts to those unfamiliar, The Atlantic’s EVP of strategy and operations, Kimberly Lau says that in fact, they’re completely unique products. “While both are delivered via speakers, they are otherwise entirely different products,” she explained. “Audio articles are about convenience and delivering content in a way that works best for our readers. Podcasts are their own original form of storytelling.”

When other companies were focusing solely on podcasts, in 2016, The Atlantic was approached by an audio startup, Audm, that wanted to use the magazine’s articles to create one-off audio stories. At the time, The Atlantic was looking for new ways to share their content, so they decided to partner.

“We received a lot of positive feedback from readers who enjoyed being able to listen instead of read during their commutes or while multi-tasking at home and work,” Lau said.

The project started with Audm and The Atlantic choosing several stories each month to record as audio articles. Since they are best known for their longform journalism, those were the articles that Audm helped the publisher record each month, releasing the stories as audio files that are playable from within the article on computers and digital devices.

Last month, with feedback overwhelmingly positive, they expanded audio articles, and now every story from the print magazine is re-created as an audio story. “We were already producing most of our monthly features in audio, so expanding to encompass the full issue was a relatively easy jump,” Lau said. “We like the idea of making sure our subscribers can consume the full issue in whatever way is most convenient for them.”

Lau expects that while audio fans may tune in to both The Atlantic’s audio articles and podcasts, audio articles will appeal more to dedicated Atlantic readers, while podcasts will attract new audiences who aren’t necessarily reading the magazine or web content.

“We want our journalism to reach as many people as possible,” Lau said. “Audio articles give us another way to distribute our stories. If we can also provide additional value to our subscribers or create a new monetization path, that’s a win.”

In the coming year, Lau and her team will be experimenting more with monetization efforts as well as expanding their audio offerings. “I think you’ll see us refining our voice and approach in podcasts and continuing to be opportunistic on audio otherwise,” she said. “With the rapid growth of smart speakers and voice assistants in homes, in mobile and in cars, I think we could easily have three distinct types of audio content — podcasts, audio articles, and interactive skills.”

Lau encourages other publishers to dip their toes into the audio waters, too. “Content is king, and there’s a demonstrated demand for great written content in audio,” she explained. To become part of that content, she advises publishers to look for good partners and sponsors who can help offset the cost while you experiment. She also suggests that publishers “stay flexible and focus on experiences that add value,” and don’t fear adding audio articles to your content mix if you already offer podcasts.

“I think there’s plenty of room for both podcasts and audio articles to grow as long as there is an audience that has ways of finding the content.”

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