Good afternoon and happy Wednesday,
Latest in the What I’ve Been Reading digest series below, apologies for missing last week - a long slog covering the local elections last week shelved the newsletter ambitions for a week.
Let’s get to it…
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 - Gökşen Çalışkan - as part of the media innovation and leadership programme at the University of Lancashire, a new 15x15 series invites reflections, updates and insights from key people across the media landscape to current, past and connected participants of the programme. Goksen shared her thoughts following the Perugia International Journalism Festival, and it’s spot on about how despite the rapid advancement of AI and other digital tools for newsrooms, there’s also a craving and market for humanity.
On one side, with technological disruption, particularly AI, organisations are pushed to adapt at speed. We even touched on the question of whether AI could become a “new audience” for publishers. It may sound far-reaching, but it cannot be ruled out.
On the other side, publishers are making deliberate efforts to reconnect with their audiences. This means more tailored content, diversified formats and channels, and even creating physical spaces for engagement.
The reality is, there’s no easy way to succeed in the coming years. Whatever route taken will involve difficult decisions, perseverance and a willingness to experiment. There’s a lot of similarities to the period of 2008-2012 when social media and smartphone use was in its infancy and starting to build rapidly. Those who embraced and were brave, were rewarded but it doesn’t mean it will last forever either.
It can all also feel overwhelming too. The key is ensuring your media brand, title, team, has a core purpose - and everything is brought back to this. Without that, the temptation to flip-flop and ebb and flow is great and causes even greater disruption and uncertainty.
One of Substack’s biggest success stories is leaving the platform - Media Finance Monitor - there’s been a lot recently of Substack’s popularity starting to wane (as a publishing platform) although its usage and audience growth is showing no signs of stopping. It’s become a place to incubate media brands who eventually grow tired of 10 per cent of revenue being taken at point of transaction and then go off and build more of an owned and operated platform. No bad thing, I say, if Substack remains a place for those who want a tech-light set up and place to test and learn. But it also pushes Substack to offer more customisation rather than a one-size-fits all approach.
See also: Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax
Local News Fund Steering Board: Recruitment Advert - DCMS, gov.uk - in March, the government announced their Local Media Strategy and within it the creation of a Local News Fund. More details are starting to emerge, especially about who will be making the awarding decisions. Recruitment has begun for a steering board. It is becoming increasingly clear the focus of the fund is very much on technological solutions, and a big focus on collaboration and advertising within that too. How the government ensures this encourages and helps actual frontline publishing efforts - whether established or independent or emerging - rather than the fund being creamed off by those with only a partial foot in the sector will in part rest on the appointment of this steering board.
If you’re in the market for upskilling yourself and you are leading an organisation, team or your own venture through this tumultuous period - it’s worth noting applications for the University of Lancashire’s journalism leadership and innovation programme will begin soon for the class of 2027. There’s some information sessions planned for September and October to discover more.
That’s all for this week’s digest, hope as always it’s proved useful and if there’s anything you think I should be including drop me a line on ed@almaonline.co.uk for consideration.
All the best for the rest of the week ahead.
Keep going.
Ed
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