News organisations struggle with AI’s rise and trust issues in a hostile political climate Shift from search engines to answer engines predicts declining referral traffic for publishers Growing creator economy and video focus reshape distribution and content strategies The global news industry is heading into a defining year in 2026, caught between the growing power of agentic artificial intelligence and a creator economy that is reshaping how audiences discover, trust and consume information, according to the latest Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions report, released this week by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Based on a…

Publishers are assessing their AI readiness across strategy, technology, operations and culture A quick, 5-minute diagnostic tool has been developed to collect industry data Results will foster industry-wide insights without ranking individual organisations AI is now firmly on every publishing agenda. Yet many organisations still struggle to answer a basic question: how ready are we, really? That uncertainty is what prompted us to create a simple AI readiness benchmark for publishers. Why this matters The aim is to create a clearer, industry-wide picture of how publishers are approaching AI across strategy, technology, operations and culture. To simplify data collection,…

Goalhanger targets broader media landscape with new senior hires Moves beyond podcasts into written content and global markets Appointments aim to support scalable growth while maintaining company culture Goalhanger has made three senior appointments as it moves to scale beyond podcasts and accelerate international growth following a record year. The hires signal Goalhanger’s shift from a hit-driven podcast network to a broader media business, with new emphasis on operational scale, financial discipline and expansion into written formats. The company, which said it surpassed 750 million streams last year, has appointed Andy Hodgson as chief financial officer, Chloe Straw as director…

Semafor raises $30 million, valuing the company at $330 million post-money Funds to boost international coverage and live journalism events Company reports first profitable year with $40 million revenue in 2025 Semafor has closed a $30 million financing round, valuing the digital media startup at $330 million after recording its first profitable year. The US-based company told investors the funds will be used to accelerate global expansion and to strengthen its live journalism events, as it broadens coverage across Washington, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, politics, global business, finance and economics. Semafor plans to hire in overseas markets including the Arabian…

WAN-IFRA aims to capitalise on recent momentum with a focus on AI and experimentation in 2026 The organisation has expanded through the integration of FIPP, creating a global media alliance Priorities include press freedom, media literacy, and strengthening publisher networks amid industry shifts WAN-IFRA is entering 2026 with an explicit reset: a tighter focus on impact, heavier investment in artificial intelligence and audience development, and a push to convert its expanded scale into tangible value for members as a new chief executive begins his tenure. With publishers facing accelerating technological change and sustained commercial pressure, WAN-IFRA is redefining its role…

Instagram’s Adam Mosseri highlights AI’s impact on content authenticity Platforms developing labels and metadata standards to verify images and videos Creators urged to embrace raw, candid content amidst growing mistrust in polished visuals Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has declared that the era when photographs or video could be taken at face value is over, arguing that advances in artificial intelligence have broken the basic visual trust that once underpinned social media. The warning comes from the executive in charge of one of the world’s most influential image platforms. He believes the problem is not a passing technical glitch but…

Experts predict a divided news industry dominated by global brands and independent creators by 2050 Traditional broadcast and print media face decline, with AI and personalised interfaces reshaping news consumption Preservation of journalistic values and trust deemed crucial for future sustainability By 2050, consuming the news may involve screens that are not really screens, AI briefings delivered through humanlike interfaces or even, as one independent publisher put it, a chip implanted in the brain. Those possibilities emerged from a wide-ranging forecast by Columbia Journalism Review, which convened senior editors, broadcasters and independent publishers to imagine what journalism might look like…

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei issued a stark warning to the media industry this week, declaring America’s information ecosystem “badly broken, deeply polluted and increasingly dangerous.” In a memo outlining the company’s strategic vision for 2026, VandeHei argued that society has officially entered a “post-news era” where traditional reporting no longer defines a shared reality. VandeHei suggests that the “crap trap” of high-volume clickbait – which Axios was originally founded to combat – has evolved into a more complex existential crisis. He describes a “shards of glass” phenomenon where public attention is shattered into countless pieces, shaped more by algorithms, podcasts,…

A new digital media platform, Velora, utilises generative AI to enable a one-person newsroom The system coordinates news gathering, drafting, and publishing, with human editing at every stage Velora aims to transform specialised journalism and offers potential for white-label publishing solutions A former editor of Cycling News has launched a digital media brand built to rethink the economics of specialist publishing, unveiling a “one-person newsroom” powered by generative AI. Velora, created by Peter Stuart with co-founder Danny Bellion, has launched in beta after a five-week build. The project offers another live test – similar to Tomorrow’s Publisher – of how…

The European Commission investigates whether Google is using publishers’ content without fair compensation for AI summaries Concerns over unfair terms and market advantage as publishers and creators warn of traffic and revenue loss Potential for significant fines and remedies if breaches of EU competition rules are confirmed The European Commission has launched a formal investigation into whether Google is breaching competition rules by using publishers’ and creators’ content to generate AI summaries in search results and on YouTube. According to the Commission, the probe will assess “to what extent the generation of AI Overviews and AI Mode by Google is…