In our keynote talk yesterday at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media India in Chennai, Michael, my co-founder at HBM Advisory, and I set out a practical framework for managing change in newsrooms. We began by acknowledging the context: print is fading fast – even in South Asia, where it had appeared resilient until the pandemic – at the same time as AI is upending distribution, from ChatGPT to Google’s AI Overviews and soon AI Mode, reducing referral traffic and breaking long-standing assumptions about how audiences reach our journalism. And yet we believe that, while many have made great progress, newsroom cultures…

The launch of the Reuters Digital News Report is always a highlight of the media-gazing year. The latest edition, published on Monday, also marks a key point in the evolution of digital news. For the first time in the US, social media and video platforms edged past traditional television and news websites as the main source of news following the January 2025 presidential inauguration. This underscores the platform preferences of younger users and the rising influence of alternative voices in the information ecosystem. The change, detected in post-inauguration survey data, reflects a tipping point in the US media landscape…

The Washington Post is in talks with Substack about a potential collaboration that would allow it to broaden its opinion coverage by tapping into the newsletter platform’s network of independent writers. The move, confirmed by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie in an interview with The Guardian, signals a notable shift in how legacy media views a platform it once regarded with suspicion. Substack, which enables writers to monetise their work directly through subscriptions, has grown rapidly in recent years and is now seen by some traditional publishers as a source of fresh talent and audience engagement. “There’s been a change in…

A new study commissioned by German media rights group Corint Media has reignited debate over how publishers should be compensated for their content in an era of AI-driven search. The report claims Google rightly owes German publishers €1.3 billion annually for using journalistic material in features like AI Overviews. At the centre of the dispute is Google’s use of AI-generated summaries in search results to answer queries directly on the page. Media organisations say this deprives them of referral traffic, undermining a key source of funding for journalism. The study (published in German), produced by consulting firm FehrAdvice & Partners,…

Taboola has launched a generative AI answer engine called DeeperDive that aims to help publishers compete with AI-powered search while giving users richer, more contextual responses to their questions. The technology is being adopted in the US by Gannett and the USA Today Network, and in the UK by The Independent. It is designed to work across Taboola’s network of 9,000 publishing partners, responding to user queries with answers drawn from the publisher’s own content and enriched with links to related stories. The goal, according to the company, is to encourage deeper engagement on publisher websites and reclaim ground lost…

Le Monde Group celebrated its 80th anniversary with record-breaking subscription figures that signal growing public appetite for trusted journalism. In an article published this week, the group’s CEO Louis Dreyfus and his fellow director Jérôme Fenoglio, highlighted that daily paid circulation is now the highest in its history, at above 530,000 copies, and well beyond the 1978 peak of 440,000 reached during a moment of intense political engagement in France. This growth has been driven by a clear focus on building digital subscriptions. Revenue from digital readers is now so substantial that it is expected to cover the full cost…

The case before London’s High Court accuses the AI firm of illegally using millions of its images to train its Stable Diffusion model. Getty Images has launched a high-profile copyright lawsuit against artificial intelligence firm Stability AI, with proceedings now under way at London’s High Court. The case is expected to set significant legal precedents for how copyright law applies to artificial intelligence. Getty alleges that Stability AI unlawfully scraped millions of images from its website to train its text-to-image model, Stable Diffusion. The tool generates images from written prompts and, Getty claims, relies on creative content taken without permission…

South African newsroom rolls out new platform, Rev360, to deepen community ties and secure funding without paywall. Daily Maverick has launched a new initiative that uses artificial intelligence to strengthen its membership model and support independent journalism. The platform, called Revenue360 or Rev360, aims to increase reader contributions and improve engagement through a mix of AI tools, community-building features and editorial planning. The project is part of the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, backed by the Google News Initiative, and reflects growing pressure on smaller newsrooms to find sustainable business models. “Funding for independent media is getting harder and harder to come…

The Washington Post is set to transform its opinion pages with Ripple, a pioneering project that integrates perspectives from independent contributors and nontraditional voices. The Washington Post is preparing to significantly expand its opinion offering through a new initiative known internally as Ripple. The project will see the Post publish commentary from outside contributors, including writers from other news organisations, independent voices on platforms like Substack and, eventually, members of the public. Ripple represents a shift in how the Post approaches opinion journalism, aiming to provide a broader range of perspectives than is currently available in its traditional editorial pages.…

The franchise agreement will form a digital-first platform curating food, culture, entertainment and events. Quint Digital is set to bring the Time Out brand to India under a new franchise agreement with Time Out Group, marking a significant expansion into lifestyle and cultural media. The deal will see the launch of Time Out India, a digital-first platform covering food, drink, culture, entertainment and events across the country. The site aims to serve both local residents and international visitors seeking authentic urban experiences. “With Time Out, we’re excited to bring a game-changing experience to the country,” said Ritu Kapur, managing director…