Happy July! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

The Atlantic and a metered paywall is a match made in heaven — www.fipp.com

As FIPP reports, there are few media executives with a better understanding of what it takes to make a paywall work than Nicholas Thompson. He was part of the team that launched the New Yorker paywall and editor-in-chief at Wired when we spoke to him about its paywall in 2019.

Now CEO of the The Atlantic, he's boss of a business that's secured 450,000 digital subscribers since it put up a paywall in 2019. He seems pretty unsurprised by that success, saying that to put a paywall in front of long, high quality stories, edited and fact-checked was 'very natural'.

“You can support yourself through mass publishing, maybe go the direction of a BuzzFeed and try and support yourself by just churning out tonnes of stuff and doing serious reporting as well as goofy lists. But if you are going to go in the direction of all you do is high quality stuff, then you pretty much need a paywall.” Amen Nick.

How local reporters in India exposed the pandemic's true death toll — gijn.org

We talk about the importance of local news a lot and sometimes the conversation can seem a little abstract. This story from the Global Investigative Journalism Network illustrates just how crucial local journalists are. It highlights the reporting of the real number of COVID deaths in India's second wave in contrast to 'suspiciously low' official figures.

Text messaging emerges as audience engagement strategy — newsroom.journalists.org

Mass texting is being used to build new audiences and even generate revenue and, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, became a crucial information conduit for many. If your media organization is starting to use texting for audience engagement, this piece from the ONA student newsroom will give you some things to consider.

How can small teams balance deadlines with creative thinking? — internationalmagazinecentre.com

Digital media means saying you're done. There are social media accounts to tend, copy that needs putting into the CMS and the relentless drive for innovation. In my latest column for the International Magazine Centre, I wrote about how important it is to be as intentional about thinking time as it is about meeting deadlines.

This week's episode:

Independent Digital News & Media Chief Data and Marketing Officer Jo Holdaway on the importance of data to publishers — voices.media

This week, we hear from Jo Holdaway, Chief Data and Marketing Officer at Independent Digital News & Media – home of The Independent and The Evening Standard. She talks about what sort of data is important to publishers, especially when it comes to subscription strategies, why it’s important to have a diverse team working with data, and how she’s preparing the business for the sunsetting of third-party cookies.