Never had the Digital News Report before highlighted so many big unanswered questions

After more than a decade the annual Digital News Report still manages to surprise and that’s not a small feat. Everyone reads the report a different way.

Many colleagues from the media industry I know are interested first in their country’s data. The country and market data tends to only show small shifts across years, but makes sense to track across longer periods of time.

Others like to dive deeper into industry trends with focus on a particular topic close to their hearts (mine is podcasting, for example) or you see people sharing a couple of charts and drawing slightly bigger conclusions from them than would be healthy.

The 13th edition of the report is different, as I mentioned, as it pulls together some of the big questions that are being asked in meetings among executives in most traditional media companies.

Here are the seven biggest ones.

1) What should be our new platform strategy?

OK, this one is as old as the internet itself, but has become significantly more important to ask in the current age of the “great platform reset” as lead researcher Nic Newman and his colleagues put it in the report.

“Platforms remain as important as ever – but the role and strategy of individual platforms is changing as they compete and evolve, with Facebook becoming less important, and many others becoming relatively more so,” concludes the report.

My answer nowadays to news outlets that ask “so which platform should we use” is all of them preferably and double down on the ones that make sense for the particular audience. In other words, promote your journalism on the biggest platforms, draw the line somewhere, and choose one or two of them you would engage with the users more.

I’m not proud of that answer and kind of hate it, but in the current fragmented platform experience I believe it’s the best approach. 

Ten years ago, Facebook used to dominate and the only question at the time being asked and discussed among publishers was how relatively big is the share of this traffic compared to Google (search) and direct visits.

Now, when you ask big and small media owners or even independent creators with a newsletter where the most of the traffic is coming from you will likely get a bigger mix of answers than a decade ago.

Some see significant increase in LinkedIn traffic, although that’s far away from the numbers Facebook used to bring. Threads from Instagram appears to be a wild card as it continues to disregard its role in surfacing news and yet its user base continues to steadily grow with the platform adding features that most users, even critics, welcome. Still, the share of current visits is far behind the numbers X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, used to be responsible for.

As the report notes later on, both publishers and audiences see search as more important, but that’s another doozy of a question.

2) With search being the most valuable traffic source, what will happen after the introduction and global rollout of generative AI answers?

There is no dispute that search has in recent years become the number one answer in terms of how news outlets should act against plummeting traffic from social media.

The SEO industry was never more important and the role of SEO editors has never been more in demand than it is today. A few years back, when I asked different media executives which platform roles they were hiring for and investing in, most said social media managers.

Only a few at the time were excited about search optimisation, and I understood them. The effects take longer to manifest, you have to plan well ahead, and you are competing also with many non-news sites that have found a specific niche over the years and understood the meaning of becoming the number one link in SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

On the other hand, investing in social media yielded immediate clicks and increase in visits. But that went away and now the future of search traffic is also insecure with Google threatening (although they pose it as a thing users and the industry should welcome) “let Google do the googling for you”. Which translates into “let users never leave Google”.

Since I remember, traffic from search has been the second most valuable for publishers after direct visits. People searching for a topic and ending up on the news article giving them the answer spent significantly more time on the website than the average from social media which we all used to call “quick visits”.

I have recently listened to so many podcast episodes (like this one; it’s good, you should listen) discussing the media apocalypse with almost no answer to the question above that I grew frustrated. 

Yes, newsletters is the number one answer you will get. Even though my news diet is made of newsletters and podcasts, and I’m super happy about it, it is not a mainstream approach. Across all markets, only 5 percent of audiences say email is their main gateway to online news. Podcasts didn’t even make this chart and even though they are growing, news podcasting is reaching only 13 percent.

Sure, you get the loyal and probably paying audiences filtered out by the use of podcasts and newsletters, but as we know, most publishers still make the bulk of their revenue from ads, which means website visits. What to do when that goes away?

Another answer I kept hearing is reinvesting in the homepage experience. That sounds straightforward, even makes a lot of sense and everyone should be working on it constantly, but for the past year I only kept hearing of only one prominent example – The Verge, the tech website from Vox Media, which doubled down on the feed experience on its own website with very nice results.

Resurrecting the homepage traffic is at the heart of this second question and sneaks up on you after reading the 2024 DNR.

3) How to approach video in 2024?

The report repeats itself from the previous year in stating that when it comes to online news, most audiences still prefer text. Nothing changed about that and probably won’t in the near future.

“Across countries, two-thirds (66%) say they access a short news video, which we defined as a few minutes or less, at least once a week, again with higher levels outside the US and Western Europe,” says the report.

Browsing through the country and market data, you get the picture that even though TV as a source of news decreases, it still takes either the top or second place overall.

Online video consumption continues to grow and as platforms push vertical video, it continues to gain more and more time spent.

I was listening to a recent interview with Instagram head Adam Mosseri conducted by a duo of creators, and even he agreed that monetising vertical video is hard. It’s easier for vertical images and much more forward with longform video.

Another tidbit from the interview came from the hosts who confessed that they hear many of their fellow creators say that they make most of their revenue on Facebook video ads, not YouTube.

That might be a very narrow part of the industry, but I got a similar confirmation from some newsrooms in Asia who only earn cents from YouTube, but see nicer payouts from Facebook.

Still, YouTube remains second globally after Facebook in terms of access to news from a platform and according to some predictions I made (with the help of ChatGPT, I should add), YouTube will probably take over Facebook around 2026.

I would love to see more research into the influence of YouTube on the news media landscape. Thanks to the DSA transparency report we see exactly how big YouTube is in European countries and in some it is much bigger than Facebook.

One example comes to my mind from Slovakia, which has had three significant elections in the past year. The more extreme and right wing parties together with many far right leaning YouTubers dominated the platform. The more moderate parties weren’t really active on YouTube.

I know correlation does not imply causation, that’s why I would love to see more research into this. 

Which brings me to the third unanswered question, how should publishers approach their video strategy in 2024? YouTube is a no-brainer, I think. Some say TikTok should be a no-brainer as well.

I guess it depends on your monetisation strategy. YouTube gives you a whole suite of tools to earn money from your video production. Based on the market you operate in, this could be quite nice, although I seldom hear about youtubers who only used the platform’s ad monetisation options to make a living. More and more there are sponsorships or product placement.

With platforms such as TikTok or even Instagram, you need to have a strong sales and creative teams to blend the ads and content, well, even to get some brand deals to start with. And this small issue remains one of the biggest pains why many outlets struggle with vertical short video monetisation.

4) How to build and maintain trust and combat news avoidance?

“High standards, a transparent approach, lack of bias, and fairness in terms of media representation are the four primary factors that influence trust,” according to the report.

I will be blunt here, but mean no offence to anyone. These four factors, as mentioned by the authors based on results across countries, ages and political viewpoints, have been the pillars of journalism since the dawn of age. But in a way, they are ideals we all strive for and will never fully reach.

Let me put it differently. If you were to come across almost any media executive and tell him or her to focus on these four factors, you would get a swift answer “but we are and always have been”.

Yet, trust in news continues to dwindle. They are not really actionable points (I get that this is on the point of the report, just saying here that in reality the question above is despite the appearance not being answered).

“Most of the public want news to be accurate, fair, avoid sensationalism, be open about any agendas and biases including lack of diversity, own up to mistakes – and not pull punches when investigating the rich and powerful,” is another line from the report and I would just say copy/paste what I just wrote above.

Closely linked with the topic of trust is the growing news avoidance. Let’s look at the summary from the report.

“Interest in news continues to fall in some markets, but has stabilised or increased in others, especially those like Argentina and the United States that are going through, or have recently held, elections. The long-term trend, however, is down in every country apart from Finland, with high interest halving in some countries over the last decade. Women and young people make up a significant proportion of that decline.”

The main reasons given for news avoidance are that news media are often repetitive and boring.

One of the most interesting things the 2024 Digital News Report has done is an analysis of user needs and information gaps.

“Audiences say, for example, that updating is the most important need, but also think that the media do a good job in this area already. By contrast, there is a much bigger gap in providing different perspectives (e.g. more context, wider set of views) and also around news that ‘makes me feel better about the world’ (offers more hope and optimism).”

There is also an actionable takeaway in this matter from the authors: “News consumers would prefer to dial down the constant updating of news, while dialling up context and wider perspectives that help people better understand the world around them.”

This is consistent with some of the projects I’m seeing like doing more summaries, slowing down news and adding more explanation. Again, keep in mind that such outcomes mean less clicks, possibly lower time spent, which results in lower ad revenue. And as we discuss next, reader revenue isn’t looking so great.

5) Should reader revenue (subscriptions, memberships) still be the priority despite stagnation?

This year I have seen one of the biggest critics of the subscription slowdown to also concede in a way. Greg Piechota, a researcher-in-residence for INMA, writes the Readers First newsletter and in recent years has disputed when mostly US-based articles suggested that we might have hit the peak of news subscriptions or that publishers are turning away from reader revenue.

I would argue similarly as Piechota does and as the Digital News Report also puts it, more publishers are looking to direct reader payment as a primary strategy to supplement advertising revenue.

That doesn’t mean subscriptions are the primary project everywhere, but it is and should be a significant diversification strategy in terms of hedging your bets for what the future might bring. Especially in terms of what is happening with the platform shift mentioned earlier in this piece.

In terms of searching for an answer to this question I would direct everyone to the work of researchers such as Piechota (find his latest pieces here).

6) What AI tools should we build and use? 

One of the most significant takeaways from the 2024 DNR for me is the perception audiences have regarding the use of AI in the newsroom.

“Across 28 countries where we included questions, we find our survey respondents to be mostly uncomfortable with the use of AI in situations where content is created mostly by the AI with some human oversight. By contrast, there is less discomfort when AI is used to assist (human) journalists, for example in transcribing interviews or summarising materials for research. Here respondents are broadly more comfortable than uncomfortable,” the report noted.

The report also pointed out how over the course of testing out a variety of AI use cases in journalism, participants developed a better idea of what they liked or disliked.

The least uncomfortable is the notion of using AI primarily for content creation with human oversight as a correcting kind of safeguard. Participants also told the researchers they want to know if AI was used and to what extent when it came to using AI in journalism.

Again, there is no clear answer or a universal remedy. We have to take into account the view of the audience and act accordingly. This might be in the form of using generative AI to read out loud the articles, adding AI-written summaries or help writing better headlines.

7) Do we need to hire a news influencer to reach young audiences?

In the report, there is a whole (and fairly long) section by Nic Newman dedicated to the rise of news influencers.

Let me start from the end where Newman concludes: “Many of the most cited accounts belong to partisan political commentators (from left and right) producing content that, on the one hand, often stands outside what would normally be published by the news media but who, on the other hand, often have worked for many years in legacy media.”

The research focuses mainly on the United States, United Kingdom, France, Argentina, and Brazil. It’s hard to draw many tangible takeaways from it applicable in general. 

As the report also notes, the impact of news influencers also depends on the media landscape and the power of social platforms in any given market.

Relating to the quote from Newman above, I have seen something similar happening in the countries in central and eastern Europe where notable influencers have a traditional media background.

They don’t have many things similar, but one observation is that after they left the newsrooms, they are more often than not pushed further from the centre towards the extremes.

What does it have to do with young audiences?

According to data, most audiences who diversify their media diet with these voices tend to be younger.

In the past, I have seen publishers think about bringing on influential voices and use them to strengthen their brand. I never saw it work out well to be honest. You would be bringing on strong-willed individuals who would probably push for revolution rather than evolution.