News Alchemists #26: Hope is a strategy.

Hello news alchemists! How have you been? Welcome back to another edition of this hope-full newsletter.

And a first welcome to new subscribers from Zetland, Diálogo Chino, Investigate Europe, FT Strategies, Clean Energy Wire, Corriere della Sera, iMEdD, and Fix The News. Let me know if how much you enjoy what you read in here 😉

I've been back from Chicago for a little more than one week (context here if you need it) and it was an intense week because I've given myself no time to recover – going to two full-day events in the span of six days, while the jet-lag was still living rent-free in my head. (Admittedly, not my smartest move.)

It was worth it though, because I got to meet many of you at The Audiencers Festival, where I was treated to a very pleasant surprise when Madeleine, the host of the event, brought the News Alchemists Venn diagram™️ on stage as part of her opening speech.

The Venn diagram – best experienced here – is a visual representation of the News Alchemists' vision: our journalism must create value for people and society to mean anything (the light blue circle on the left); and we also need to get people's attention and make money to support what we do (the purple circle on the right).

Everything we do must sit at the intersection of the two circles = our aim should be to offer products and experiences that create so much value for people's lives that they will want to pay for them (if they can). Or in other words:

A sustainable future for journalism is not a dream: we'll earn it by relentlessly focusing on serving people’s needs and curiosity, and the benefit of society.

I used to obsess a little about this Venn diagram, to the point that I made an entire presentation about it at Media Party in Buenos Aires last year. Conveniently, the video of that presentation was just made available on YouTube last week – and shared on social in his usual creative way by Nico.

But back to the many conversations I had with some of you at The Audiencers Festival: it's always a joy to meet my readers in person, and I'm incredibly grateful for the positive feedback and enthusiasm about the newsletter that you always share with me on those occasions.

But in recent conversations, another type of feedback has started to appear more and more often: it's great to receive seven links to hopeful and interesting things to read every week, but it's also getting hard to keep up, with bookmarks and open tabs multiplying in your browsers.

Fair enough, I'd say. I'm working on a little survey that I will share with you in the coming weeks to learn more about what you like and don't like of this newsletter, and adapt it accordingly (and I'm telling you so that I can fight my tendency to procrastinate, because now that I've told you I really have to finalise that survey soon or I will feel bad). But I also want to act on your feedback right away, so only one link today rather than seven.

And not just any link: I sat down with Matt Cronin of House of Kaizen – whom you might remember as the first-ever sponsor of this newsletter – for an Ask-Me-Anything session about all things audience, trust, and sustainability:

AMA with Mattia Peretti — House of Kaizen

As the founder of News Alchemists and former head of JournalismAI at LSE, Mattia Peretti is helping reshape how journalism serves people, by learning from other industries and interrogating its deepest assumptions.

House of KaizenMatt Cronin

It's a wonderful conversation, driven by Matt's curiosity, his insightful takes honed while working with subscription businesses across industries, and most of all his talent for helping you better understand and formulate your own thoughts.

Here are five points that Matt put together to summarise our conversation:

1. The real crisis is a broken relationship with the audience
2. More content ≠ more value. Relevance, not volume, wins
3. Complicity, not pedagogy, builds trust
4. Product mindset isn’t optional – it’s journalism’s best shot at survival
5. Hope is a strategy – if we redefine value and pace of change

If you choose to listen to the AMA, I'd love to know if what you hear resonates.

According to Matt, I am "quietly leading a hopeful rebellion, helping reshape how journalism serves people, and interrogating its deepest assumptions." I'm 100% going to steal that line.

See you next week 👋

P.S.: You might be thinking: you didn't tell us about the second event you went to last week! Well, it's just that it had nothing to do with journalism. But it was also very cool.

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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