Good afternoon from sunny Lancashire!
Sorry this digest has been quiet for a few weeks, a combination of the recent school holidays and various projects got squarely in the way. But back to it today and giving you a digest of some interesting reads which have crossed my feed recently, so let’s get to it…
Google Zero hype - but one paragraph from Google means AI Overviews may not be having the impact previously feared - Google Support - tucked away on the Google webmasters is this paragraph which potentially drives a bus through some of the doom mongering around how the search giant is displaying content and will expose those who are just focusing on top-level metrics when it comes to making content decisions. I’ve written before about how we use analytics tool SmartOcto on Blog Preston to help us get well beyond headline data to make content choices.
A logging error is preventing Search Console from accurately reporting impressions from May 13, 2025 onward. This issue will be resolved over the next weeks; as a result, you may notice a decrease in impressions in the Search Console Performance report. Only impressions and CTR are affected; clicks and other metrics were not affected by the error, and this issue affects data logging only.
Sounds obscure, but it essentially means the click-through rates of where pages or stories are appearing in Google are not as bad as first thought. My hunch would be it’s been double-counting where things appear - perhaps involving Discover or Top Stories and this data has been wrongly feeding into Google Search Console and inflating the impressions metric.
It chimes with this PressGazette piece from February, where the Mail, Telegraph and Bauer said reports of the death of search traffic and Google were over-rated. It’s evolving rather than dying.
Five Years in, Axios Local Still Isn’t Profitable. Can it Be? - Kari McMahon, A Media Operator - the newsletter-driven operator has expanded rapidly in the US, and is now moving into smaller markets and utilising AI to assist with this. Executive editor Holly Moore lifts the lid on what’s working for them and how they operate.
“We just launched our first one-person newsletter markets last year in Boulder, Colo., and Huntsville, Ala., and they’re not huge markets, right?” Moore said. “But there’s definitely a need, and we’re seeing it in the subscriber numbers and the memberships there.”
To me this is interesting because within the UK there’s a lot of focus on what’s happening within the big city markets and launches and legacy media there, but with the recent Local Media Strategy from the government, what’s the answer beyond those major urban areas?
How should the government’s £12m local news fund be spent? - Journalism UK - a survey has been launched by Jacob Granger at JournalismUK to ask those working in local news how they think a new fund should be deployed to help stimulate and help local news provision in the UK. Last month, the Secretary of State confirmed the following
launching a multiyear Local News Fund of £6 million in the first year and up to a further £6 million in the second year for local media to invest in digital innovation and the digital tools, resources and infrastructure from which the whole industry can benefit in moving towards a digital-first and sustainable future, with some funding reserved to support communities in local news deserts.
No further details have yet come forward about who would be eligible and how it’s all going to work.
So Jacob writes..
We wanted to gauge how those working in local journalism intend to engage with this scheme, where they perceive the greatest needs of their organisation, and if successful, where they would invest the money.
So, we reached out to a number of different stakeholders working in local news to design the following survey. Please fill it out and share with peers as we hope to foster a more constructive conversation around needed support for local and regional journalism, and a robust set of findings to send to the UK government.
You can fill in the survey here - and it’ll be interesting to see how the government set ups the focus of the fund, which appears to have a big focus on collaborative tools and technology.
Thanks for reading this week’s edition of the What I’ve Been Reading digest, hope you’ve found it useful and feel free to share it along to someone you think should be reading.
Share Ed Walker - Journalism Innovation
I aim to send it every Wednesday afternoon (barring the last few weeks!) and as always if you’ve got something to potentially be featured drop me a line at ed@almaonline.co.uk
Hope the rest of your week goes well.
Keep going.
Ed
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