12:08 pm - March 23, 2026
Dow Jones aims for $1bn in annual earnings within five years amid shift to digital and AI-driven products The segment’s revenue now 82% digital, with a focus on subscriptions and data services Growth driven by AI licensing, risk and energy intelligence, and enterprise news News Corp said Dow Jones, the…
Axios cuts 11 newsroom roles to focus on deep subject expertise Company aims to build a ‘newsroom of the future’ blending human skill and AI Shift reflects broader trend towards niche authority in digital media Axios has cut 11 newsroom roles as it pivots away from general assignment reporting towards…
Jamie Stockwell set to start as vice president of news at USA TODAY in March 2026 Will focus on impartial reporting, innovation, and expanding audience reach Brings extensive experience from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Axios Local USA Today has appointed Jamie Stockwell as vice president of…
Vox names Steve Heuser as executive editor, starting 23 March Heuser brings extensive experience from Politico and Boston Globe Focus on strengthening coverage across politics, policy, and explanatory journalism Vox has named Steve Heuser as executive editor, the company said in a statement, with Heuser due to begin the role on 23 March. The appointment was announced by Vox’s editor‑in‑chief and publisher Swati Sharma, who said Heuser would work with the newsroom’s leadership to shape coverage priorities, bolster editors and reporters, and help steer the outlet’s journalism amid a rapidly changing media environment. At Vox, Heuser will have editorial oversight…
Rashida Jones, former MSNBC president, takes on leadership of Uncensored Uncensored aims to diversify its streaming and social content globally Industry observers see her role as key to scaling Morgan’s digital brand Former MSNBC president Rashida Jones has been appointed chief executive of Uncensored, the digital media venture fronted by British broadcaster Piers Morgan. The appointment puts Jones in charge of strategy, operations and editorial development as Uncensored looks to broaden its mix of streaming and social content beyond its flagship programme, Piers Morgan Uncensored. Her arrival comes as digital news and commentary ventures race to build sustainable models based…
Bonnier News’ profitability increased by 29% in 2025, driven by digital subscriptions Digital revenue now accounts for over 60% of total income, with nearly 500,000 digital subscribers The company anticipates a stronger year in 2026 with continued growth in readership and advertising Bonnier News ended 2025 with sharply improved profitability and continued growth in its subscription business, the Swedish media group said, positioning the company for what its chief executive expects will be a stronger 2026. The results highlight the steady shift toward reader revenue and digital products across the group’s portfolio of national and local titles. The publisher reported…
Traditional newsrooms are overwhelmed with extensive coverage for huge events Readers primarily seek perspective and education, not multiple updates News organisations should prioritise analysis and opinion to better serve digital audiences This is from our weekly Editor’s picks newsletter. Sign up for free here I did something I do very rarely this week: I turned on our television at home in the morning. The reason, unsurprisingly, was the war in Iran. My goal was to get up to date with all the latest news. And I did. If nothing else, rolling TV news stations are always quick on to…
ESPN hires six experienced journalists from The Washington Post amid industry reshuffle New recruits bolster ESPN’s investigative and long‑form sports coverage The move highlights the widening talent gap and strategic shifts after Post’s sports desk closure Five weeks after The Washington Post dismantled its sports desk, ESPN has hired six of the newspaper’s former reporters, a move that follows a similar mass hiring by The Athletic, which is part of The New York Times. The hires reflect a broader shift in sports journalism, as legacy newspapers shrink specialist desks while broadcasters and digital outlets invest in reporting capacity aimed at…
Steve Grove discusses the decline of traditional local newspapers amid rising citizen reporting The Star Tribune adapts through digital innovation, risking operational cuts Signs of growth emerge through increased online subscriptions despite funding challenges Sometimes the context around a conversation reshapes its meaning. That was evident at last Friday’s Good…
RAG combines retrieval and generative models to deliver up-to-date, accurate answers Structured data and schema markup boost content discoverability for AI systems SEO strategies are shifting towards fact clarity and entity prominence to favour AI-driven search answers Retrieval-Augmented Generation — or RAG — is changing how information is surfaced online.…
Indian newsrooms focus on deploying AI for operational efficiency and editorial integrity Practical case studies highlight automation of routine tasks and fact-checking tools Industry emphasises responsible AI use, governance and safeguarding against manipulated content Leaders from India’s newsrooms joined international experts in Bengaluru last week for WAN-IFRA’s AI in Media…
Mediahuis reports marginal revenue growth of 2% in 2025, with a strategic shift from print to digital The company’s radio and online marketplace divisions experience notable expansion Stronger cash position enables further digital investments and cross-border acquisitions across Europe Mediahuis, the Belgium-based publisher which also has titles in the Netherland,…
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Major UK news organisations launch SPUR to combat unauthorised AI training use Aim to establish licensing standards and secure fair compensation for original reporting Initiative underscores concerns over AI’s impact on journalism’s economic sustainability Some of Britain’s largest news organisations have launched a coalition to challenge the unauthorised use of…
Programme targets young media leaders across EMEA to foster responsible AI use in newsrooms 12-week, tuition-free initiative supported by Google News Initiative aims to narrow innovation gap Focus on skills development through real-world challenges, mentorship, and collaborative learning WAN-IFRA has unveiled the NextGen AI Leaders Programme, a 12-week initiative to…
The Washington Post faces over $100 million losses, prompting major layoffs. Costs have risen 16% while output has fallen 42%, highlighting financial strain. Leadership aims to reposition the newsroom as a distinctive, must-read outlet amid changing reader habits. The Washington Post lost more than $100 million last, following a $77…
Politico to launch in Australia, targeting policy professionals and political obsessives Moves into a market dominated by News Corp and Nine Entertainment with a premium, insider-focused model Aims to fill a gap in policy intelligence and deepen political coverage in the Australian context Politico will launch in Australia later this…
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John Mulholland brings decades of international editorial experience to the paper His appointment aims to enhance breaking coverage and long-form storytelling The outlet seeks to innovate tone, technique, and technology in local journalism Kevin Delaney, editor in chief of The San Francisco Standard, has appointed Fleet Street veteran John Mulholland as managing editor, according to a staff memo published by Talking Biz News. Mulholland will oversee day-to-day news operations, working with section editors on breaking coverage and long-form journalism. He will report to Delaney and is due to start on Monday 30 March. He lives in Sacramento and has served…
Lenore Taylor announces her departure after 13 years at Guardian Australia, including a decade as editor Under her leadership, the outlet became one of Australia’s most-read news sources, with major award wins A successor will be chosen through an open process, with David Munk serving as interim editor until then Lenore Taylor has announced she will step down from Guardian Australia after 13 years in senior roles that included a decade as the title’s editor, leaving the organisation she helped establish in 2013. Taylor joined Guardian Australia as a senior member of staff at its May 2013 launch and quickly…
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News Corp has extended the contract of its chief executive Robert Thomson to June 2030, backing his leadership through a decade of change that has seen the company’s share price rise 140%. Thomson, who has led the publisher since 2013, was previously contracted until 2027. His time in charge has been defined by a rapid shift from legacy businesses to digital operations. By the end of fiscal 2024, digital revenues accounted for half of News Corp’s total, up from just 20% in 2014. That transition has included vocal lobbying for publisher rights, partnerships with tech giants and a major divestment:…
Hearst has introduced a voice-controlled AI assistant on its recipe site Delish, offering home cooks hands-free guidance through recipes. The tool, called Cooking Coach, was originally developed as a weekend experiment by Alexandria Redmon, Hearst’s senior director of AI initiatives, and has since grown into a full-featured product that addresses common kitchen challenges like setting timers, adjusting portions and suggesting ingredient swaps. As first reported by Digiday, Cooking Coach is built using OpenAI’s GPT large language model and trained solely on Delish’s archive of more than 30,000 recipes. The assistant can walk users through step-by-step instructions, respond to questions in…
News publishers in India are asking the same questions and facing the same issues as those in the US and Europe was the conclusion after two days of discussions and presentations at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media India conference in Chennai this week. They may be only just starting to face falling print circulations – another victim of Covid – but otherwise they are still looking at how best to monetise their digital content and utilise artificial intelligence. There were questions about scale and subscriptions, AI and audiences. “Do you really need 200-300m users to build sustainability? Can you do it…
Bay City News, a small local nonprofit, has won plaudits for showing how artificial intelligence can enhance coverage without undermining trust. The publication, which serves the San Francisco Bay Area, recently won the 2024 Local Media Association Digital Innovation Award for the Most Innovative Use of AI in a News Organisation. The recognition came for its AI-driven approach to the 2024 election cycle, a complex logistical challenge involving hundreds of races across 13 counties. Bay City News combines a for-profit regional newswire with a nonprofit newsroom that powers its Local News Matters website. This structure has allowed it to experiment…
Investigative podcasts have become a fast-developing format for modern journalism, combining deep reporting with the immersive storytelling of long-form audio. Though still a niche within the broader podcasting ecosystem, their ability to explore complex subjects in rich detail, free from the time or space constraints of conventional media, has made them increasingly valuable to newsrooms looking to reach younger or underserved audiences. Outlets such as Poland’s Pismo Investigation and Lisbon-based Fumaça are among the European pioneers. Pismo has produced multiple acclaimed seasons, with its fifth series – released in April 2024 – examining harassment and institutional failure through multiple hour-long episodes. Fumaça…
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…
Time Inc is positioning itself as a willing collaborator in the AI era, with CEO Jessica Sibley making the case for negotiation and integration over litigation or inertia. Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, Sibley outlined how the 102-year-old publisher is embedding AI across its operations to remain influential and efficient in a fast-changing industry. Sibley said Time had quickly recognised that it faced a choice: to negotiate, litigate or do nothing. It chose to negotiate, aiming to “have a seat at the table” with leading AI developers. That decision has shaped a strategy that…
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…
Harvard University has opened up nearly one million digitised books for use in training artificial intelligence models – a move likely to be closely watched by publishers as they negotiate with or sue AI companies over access to copyrighted content. The dataset, unveiled through Harvard’s Institutional Data Initiative, includes around 394 million pages and an estimated 242 billion tokens, making it one of the largest public domain corpora available for AI research. The collection spans texts from the 15th century onwards, covering more than 250 languages, with a particular concentration of material from the 19th century. It marks the first…
A local newspaper in Ohio is turning to artificial intelligence to tackle one of the most common complaints from its readers – poor grammar and spelling. Cleveland.com, part of the Advance Local group, has introduced a new in-house tool called Editor’s Eyes, designed to help reporters catch mistakes before their stories go live. The system, built by Advance’s David Cohn, acts like an automated copy editor. Reporters paste their draft into a browser window and receive instant feedback on spelling, grammar and readability. The goal is not just to improve accuracy but also to give writers a chance to reflect…
