Bringing readers back: real world tactics for combatting news fatigue
Fri 11 April 2025
15:00
Free
Calculating distance...
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.
Modified more than a month ago
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Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.
Giornalismo
Pagina tematica del giornalismo
Ellen Heinrichs
Ellen Heinrichs is the founder and CEO of the Bonn Institute. She has more than twenty years of experience as an innovation leader, journalist, speaker and communications expert for various media companies and international non-profit organizations. Prior to founding the Bonn Institute, she was Head of Knowledge Transfer and Innovation at the German foreign broadcaster DW. Throughout her career, Ellen has been particularly interested in how journalism must change to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. In response to increasing news avoidance and declining trust in journalism, the nonprofit Bonn Institute has therefore made it its mission to make journalism more human-friendly, diverse and audience-engaging. The Bonn Institute works with a wide range of private, public and nonprofit media organizations, offering journalists workshops and networking opportunities, as well as advising media managers looking for a constructive compass. Ellen Heinrichs is a qualified mediator...
Inanna Lallerstedt
Inanna Lallerstedt is a Senior Product Manager at Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), one of Sweden’s leading premium subscription newspapers. She works at the intersection of product and editorial, focusing on enhancing the digital experience for readers. In 2024, she played a key role in developing SvD Kompakt, which went on to win INMA’s Global Media Award for Best New Product. Her passion for product development began when she co-founded a startup in the IoT industry. Since then, she has worked across different parts of Schibsted—centrally, at Aftonbladet, and now at SvD. She is particularly interested in how product and editorial teams can collaborate more effectively to build sustainable and successful media businesses. With a strong user-centric approach, she is dedicated to creating products that drive both engagement and long-term growth.
Nic Newman
Nic Newman is Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism where he is lead author of the annual Digital News Report, the world’s largest on-going study of consumer behaviour around news covering 46 countries. He also authors an influential annual report on journalism and technology trends and has published a recent report on how publishers are using TikTok to attract younger audiences. Other research interests include podcasts and digital audio, new storytelling formats, social media and misinformation and trust in news. Nic also works as a consultant helping media companies with product strategy, data metrics, and digital transformation. He was a founding member of the BBC News Website in 1997 where he led international coverage. As Head of Product Development and Engineering for BBC News he helped introduce innovations such as apps, blogs, podcasting and on-demand video. For ten years he led digital teams, developing websites, mobile and interactiv...