Ellen Heinrichs
founder and CEO Bonn Institute
Inanna Lallerstedt
senior product manager Svenska Dagbladet
Nic Newman
senior research fellow Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Angela Pacienza
executive editor The Globe and Mail
The 2024 festival panel and article outlining seven ways to combat news avoidance struck a chord with industry practitioners. In this follow-up, we propose to showcase approaches that are demonstrably working that others can learn from:
> The Globe and Mail (Canada). Inspired by last year’s IJF, Executive Editor Angela Pacienza implemented a new content and commissioning strategy in her newsroom to drive more positive and constructive approaches. This includes creating new journalistic beats including ‘happiness’ and ‘time‘, broadening the scope of news alerts, and re-thinking what makes an audience-first story mix. These have had measurable effects on audience satisfaction but also made Globe and Mail more friendly for women and harder to reach subscribers. Angela will also describe the cultural challenges of implementing this type of change.
> Svenska Dagblad: Kompakt. Faced with increased news avoidance amongst young people, SvD have launched an innovative app aimed at those who want to read less but know more. Inanna Lallerstedt, Senior Product Manager played a key role in launching SvD Kompakt and will explain how research informed the highly visual approach (formats) and a different agenda too. This has paid off with 50,000 subscribers in the first year and high levels of regular use.
Moderated by Nic Newman.