#19 - From Bump to Slump

A fall in trust, declining interest in news and a rise in news avoidance. The big conclusions of this year’s Reuters Digital News Report?are far from cheerful. It seems the Covid bump has given way to a New Normal slump. Maybe the most concerning result of the survey is the fact that more and more people are opting out of news. Respondents say it’s repetitive (43%), depressing (36%) or can’t be trusted (29%). More than ever the critical challenge publishers face today is: connecting with people and convincing them that news?is worth their while.

This and more in this week’s Wayfinder!?

IN FOCUS

The 2022 Digital News Report keeps on expanding. This year's report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a survey of over 93,000 online news consumers in 46 markets covering half of the world's population.

• The executive summary.
• Country & market data.
• The most important findings in slides.
• Interactive graphs.

And Edison Research and NPR released The Smart Audio Report. 62% of American adults use a voice assistant; 35% now own a smart speaker; 39% of people use their smart speaker to listen to podcasts. Two-thirds listen to news on their device.

NEWS & PRODUCT

Earlier this week NYT executives articulated their strategy to make The Times' subscription offerings more engaging and more profitable. It’s worth taking your time for the very thoughtful investor deck.?It's?a great narrative on how the NYT connects user needs and product.

Aftenposten in Norway is?rethinking its front page to make every visit “time well spent” and power further subscription growth. After surveying 1,100 users, they decided their new front page would need to:

• Give a quick and efficient overview.
• Show users what’s important
• Help users understand context
• Give new insight and inspiration.

NEWSROOM

Service journalism and solutions journalism are both essential tools to make reporting stronger and more useful to your audiences. But do you know the difference? Here's how?to move from engagement to service journalism to solutions journalism and back again.

After the much discussed in-fighting of WSJ journalists on Twitter there is a feeling that newsrooms need to update their social media policies. Poynter describes?four steps to revise a social media policy for news organisations.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

FIPP launched the latest edition of its Global Digital Subscription Snapshot pulling together and ranking subscriber data from 121 publisher brands. Leading the pack was The New York Times with 9.5 million subscribers, followed by Dow Jones with 3.9 million subscribers, Nikkei with nearly 1.9 million and Gannett with 1.8 million.

Against the backdrop of the worsening economic climate there seems to be a trend toward simpler subscription offerings. Prospective subscribers now want to know exactly what value they’re getting for their money and on what terms. Publishers that fail to communicate that information simply will increasingly struggle to grow their subscriber bases.

PLATFORMS

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is re-examining its commitment to paying for news, prompting some news organizations to prepare for a potential revenue shortfall of tens of millions of dollars.

Two veterans of some of the biggest newsrooms in the world have joined forces to launch The News Movement — a news service aimed at young people on the platforms they use and offering high-quality reporting in a format that works for them.

The WAN-IFRA blog gives some guidance on how newsrooms can approach TikTok.

And the next big social platform might be the smartphone’s homescreen. The Verge takes a look at a new set of apps at the top of the App Store.

SHORT

• EU unveils tougher industry code to combat misinformation.
• Spotify has acquired Sonantic, a dynamic AI voice platform.
• Meta’s Horizon World has launched in the UK.
• Facebook plans discovery engine to compete with TikTok.
• Netflix may be bidding for Formula One racing rights.
• Apple explains how its search works.

INNOVATION

For some it’s wired for others already tired. The fact is that the signals about the potential of the metaverse are mixed. Usage on some of the top early metaverse platforms have collapsed to as little as 1,000 users a week.

But in a new report consultancy firm McKinsey predicts up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, For them the metaverse is too big for companies to ignore.

NBC has built an app that allows journalists to record motion tracked graphics in the field. It's an incredible way to add additional context to a video story.?

READ

A Google engineer published a series of conversations between himself and the massive language model LaMDA, claiming that the AI has become sentient. Google decided to put him on leave after he attempted to hire a lawyer to fight for LaMDA’s right to be recognised as a person.

Meanwhile, claims have emerged that engineer edited the transcripts before making them public.

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Wayfinder is back next week!

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Ezra.