News Take Episode 103: Leveraging Products to Connect with Your Audience

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

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

View all episodes

 

Send us your suggestions

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

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