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7 min read

News Alchemists #17: "What if journalism was a place you could walk into again?”

Hello and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

Today I want to tell you a little story. A few weeks ago, I received an email I was not expecting: "Mattia, I'm interested in supporting your newsletter. Are you open to a sponsor?"

Whoa! When I started writing this newsletter, I had hopes about being able to monetise it some day, but at no point did I even dream that someone would be interested in sponsoring it after I sent only a few editions!

The email came from Matt Cronin, the founder of House of Kaizen, a consulting business that supports organisations with optimisation strategies for audience revenue growth.

I met Matt about one year ago – @Laura, thanks again for that introduction! – and since then we have had a number of fascinating conversations about the need for journalism organisations to embrace audience-centricity at scale, and what that looks like in practice.

It didn't take long for Matt and I to understand we believe in the same things:

That journalism can redefine itself, and find new opportunities to become financially sustainable, only if it focuses relentlessly on creating value for people’s lives; and that we share a commitment to work with people not because of what they do but why they do it. (Yes, we have both read Start with Why.)

After that first email, the conversation evolved organically from a discussion about sponsorship into one about collaboration – all the way to the announcement I'm excited to make today:

🥁 For the next five weeks, the News Alchemists newsletter is supported by House of Kaizen!

(It feels surreal to even write that sentence.)

Let me be very clear: this is not a soulless ad where I get $$$ from HoK to sing their praise and that’s it. (I also do get $$$ of course.) I’ve spoken to the team, I’ve learned about how they work and the methodology they deploy, and I believe that your company would do itself a big favour by hiring them.

House of Kaizen has a solid framework in place – the Growth Diagnostic – to turn the idea of audience-centricity that I’ve been championing through News Alchemists into an actionable roadmap that will help you align your business goals with the goals of your audience, in order to build products they actually want and are willing to pay for.

Here’s a 3-min video where Matt explains how the diagnostic works and what it will help you achieve.

Sounds interesting? Let me know if you have any questions, or get in touch with HoK directly if you’re already convinced. I hope (for you) that you will.

I love writing this newsletter. I know it’s valuable and enjoyable – because you told me so! – and now I also know I have a product that someone is willing to pay for.

That’s the best feeling and what we should all aim for: unlocking a virtuous circle that starts with creating value for our audiences and communities; continues with building a relationship with them based on shared humanity; and sustains itself by finding partners who are willing to invest in our products and services because they share our vision and mission.

Thank you, as always, for making all of this possible by reading this newsletter. I'd love to know what you think of today’s news and if you have any questions about it.

It's time for the seven links of this week. Enjoy!

P.S.: Thanks to the many of you who shared feedback and ideas on how to turn the table I shared last week into a useful tool. I’m looking forward to testing a few ideas. Stay tuned.

This beautiful question has been living rent-free in my head since I read this inspiring post by 🧞Sebastián Auyanet Torres. He speaks about the idea of journalism organisations having a physical space "where journalists and audiences meet as equals, not as speaker and listener."

Earlier this year, lamenting how we often reduce our audiences to eyeballs and numbers, I also wrote that "I believe there’s one thing we must be doing much more often to counter this trend toward dehumanisation: meet our audiences in real life." But in this post Sebastián explains it much better, and in a way that gives me real hope:

"There’s a desire across the field to move beyond the platform and the classic broken metrics. To return to real places, to spaces where journalism can be slow and more relational. [...] This isn’t about scale. It’s about trust, atmosphere, attention. It’s about rebuilding journalism as a shared civic space."

Wanna talk about journalism in physical spaces? How about a local news organisation that was literally born and raised in a café (and not any café) and later established not one but three pop-up newsrooms in some of the least covered areas of Lisbon? Meet 🧩Mensagem de Lisboa, the inspiring initiative created in 2021 by 🧞Catarina Carvalho that works with communities across the city to cultivate understanding, empathy, and positive societal change.

In what was then described as an 'unlikely media deal', in 2022 the Chicago Sun-Times was bought by 🧩 Chicago Public Media, turning into a nonprofit after decades as a privately-owned newspaper. Just a few months later, it decided to drop its paywall in favour of a donation-based member revenue model, to make it possible for anyone to access the news for free. It was a bold move, but the experimentation didn't stop there.

The Sun-Times hired House of Kaizen to design experiments aimed at growing its membership programme. The most successful of such experiments is the 'Freewall': if you open an article on the Sun-Times' website (try here), you are presented with a banner that looks like a paywall but it's not: you can donate to become a member, or watch a video to get free access to the article you want to read. "The video is about the Sun-Times itself, its commitment to the community and the quality of their local journalism, all the reasons why supporting the publication with a membership contribution is good for everyone."

A clever way to communicate at the same time 1) the value of your journalism; 2) the notion that making journalism costs money; and 3) your commitment to serving the community – and not only those in the community who can afford to pay.

I hate the term 'news avoidance'. Here I rant about explain why. But if we really must talk about people 'avoiding' the news, let's at least try to understand the phenomenon better. This article helps: "news avoiders break down into three groups. The first is a growing group of former news consumers who are dialling back, the second is a group who have never engaged with news in the first place, while the third group worrying media executives is young people, who appear to have lost trust in established news brands."

'Impact' is a big buzzword in journalism circles lately, and rightly so. As the organisation who pioneered the introduction of 'impact editors' in the newsroom – back in 2019! – 🧩 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has a lot of lessons to share on how to incorporate impact as a business strategy into your journalism. (@Kathryn, thanks for sharing this piece!)

Last week, I shared my recent fascination with Nigerian magazine 🧩 The Republic, winner of the 2025 Inbox Award in the category 'Innovation in Design'. Here's an interview with editor-in-chief 🧞Wale Lawal – who started The Republic back in 2018 – sharing the story of the publication and its successful strategy with developing and growing newsletters. Lots of wisdom packed into a single interview.

Among many other things, I loved the part where Lawal credits MDIF's 🧞Bilal Randeree with helping him realise that "innovation isn’t just this grand thing. It doesn’t just mean paying a big amount to get AI to write your newsletters. Innovation is literally taking things a step up."

Publishing a monthly list of the product updates your publication makes to improve the user experience? Yes, please! Nth brilliant idea by 🧩 Rest of World, another brand I admire and another brand I'm shocked to realise I have not yet featured in this newsletter.

(The April updates have also dropped.)

More links? 📚 Check out the previous editions

A word from my friends at House of Kaizen

Twenty four years of audience revenue growth optimization has allowed us to identify the common markers of the strongest growth programs and share them with you.

Our diagnostic is the starting point for HoK collaborations, built on experience across all kinds of recurring revenue businesses, having identified the characteristics of an optimal revenue growth program. We look at hundreds of data points through the lens of our growth framework to find better alignment between the consumer expectations and the marketing and product experiences, to maximize CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).

After an intensive work session, you’ll have a firm understanding of where to focus your resources for future growth and a CLV-optimized audience experience. We’ll highlight preliminary ideas for manifesting those improvements and how HoK might help moving forward. Get in touch to learn more.

What is this newsletter?

The relationship between journalism and the people it aims to serve is broken. But we can heal it if we learn to put audiences and communities at the centre of everything we do. The News Alchemists newsletter wants to help you to do just that.

Every week I share seven links to give you some hope and to introduce you to the many smart, kind, and courageous people (🧞) who strive every day to use journalism as a force for good in society – and to the organisations (🧩) that show us that a different journalism is possible, and profitable.

To respond to this newsletter, just hit reply. I love hearing from you and reading your questions, comments, and suggestions.

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Published by:

Mattia Peretti

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