Monday 11th December: Project 23’s Elaine dela Cruz on creating DE&I programmes in media

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On this week’s episode of the podcast Elaine dela Cruz, co-founder of DE&I consultancy firm Project 23, tells us about what is creating positive change for diversity and inclusion in the industry. We’re also joined by guest co-host Joanna Cummings, Editorial Director of The Grub Street Journal and author of the DE&I chapter of this year’s Media Moments report.

Elaine takes us through why she co-founded the organisation, how the DE&I landscape has changed over the past five years, and why ‘resilience’ is such a dangerous word. We also discuss how the best media companies are measuring the success of their DE&I efforts.

This is our final episode of the season, but do keep an eye out for our special episode and report from Mx3 AI coming next week, in partnership with Media Makers Meet! Then we’ll all be taking a well-earned Christmas break.

The SEO headline for this on Google was “MailOnline to make readers pay for ‘sidebar of shame’ as it prepares to flaunt subscriptions”, which did make me smile. The publisher has looked to German tabloid Bild for inspiration, which introduced a partial paywall on its website a decade ago. If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it’s their second attempt: Mail+ was launched in 2019 offering exclusive videos and podcasts. Mail+ has now been rebranded and just offers a digital edition of the newspaper.

It’s been amazing to watch The New European’s journey from Archant pop-up paper to being bought by founder Matt Kelly and a group of investors, and now thriving as an independent publication. They’ve managed to grow subscribers 62% this year thanks to tactical marketing spend on a podcast no less.

This excellent essay from Diego Arguedas Ortiz and Katherine Dunn at the Reuters Institute rounds up the 14 lessons the Oxford Climate Journalism Network have learned about rethinking and pushing forward climate journalism. My favourite one is, to make climate change less abstract, “Find your mango.”

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