Thursday 7th July: How do you measure the impact of journalism?

July 07, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris. Look, I'm writing this at 9pm on the night of the 6th of July. It is impossible for me to predict what will have happened politically in the UK before this newsletter comes out. It will almost certainly be out of date, please forgive me.

Every so often we get an article that digs into the heart of what it means to work in journalism. The intro to this article is as clear a statement of intent as you'll ever get: "The majority of journalists will tell you they got into the profession in order to help people and to make change. How can newsrooms measure if we are achieving this goal?"

We know that audiences are increasingly interested in green verticals. We've seen the commercial considerations that underpin the launch of those new verticals for publishers. But here we can actually get a look at why journalists write it, and what the public decides is worth their time:

"Having a clear way to track and measure impact that goes beyond ad metrics can demonstrate the value of this important and nuanced work, potentially creating more resources for this type of reporting in the newsroom," says Green-Barber, founder of Impact Architects and an expert in media strategy."

We almost never have time to examine our strategies from a very high level: Sydney Lewis is a 2022 RJI Student Innovation Fellow partnered with NOLA.com in New Orleans, and has done a truly fascinating look at how to create evergreen newsletter content. You'd be a fool not to look at these data-led insights.

Much as we speak about the power of subscriptions and memberships, smart publishers' advertising strategy is still paying off. For WNIP, Faisal Kalim examines how advertising is having a renaissance, and how publishers can get involved.

Everyone will always try to get around paywalls and everyone knows it. The only way to get people to pay for your content consistently is to have a compelling and consistent message. This article from Toolkits attempts to explain where that value exchange comes from.

This week's podcast:

On this week’s episode we hear from Lance Johnson, CEO of Recurrent Media. You might not have heard of them (yet), but you will have heard of some of their 25 brands – Donut, Domino, Saveur, Popular Science, and most recently, MEL magazine. He tells us about the group’s acquisition strategy, how they’re different from the usual VC companies we encounter, and what you need to do to get bought by Recurrent.

Tickets to the inaugural Publisher Podcast Summit are on sale! Take advantage of an exclusive pre-agenda discount code just for our newsletter subscribers: enter MVNL20 at checkout for 20% off all ticket types.