25 Nov 2025 5 min read

🔶 News Alchemists #44: "Should journalists try to make change in the world?"

Hello and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

Last week I shared on LinkedIn the thoughts about engagement I had opened the last newsletter with, and guess what? Engagement happened. Quality engagement, I should say:

(Most of these comments are longer than what you see in the screenshots. Click to read them in full.)

That's more than enough wisdom for one introduction, so let's move straight to the seven links, shall we?

See you next week! 👋

P.S.: The LinkedIn post is here if you want to ~~engage with~~ share your own thoughts.

P.P.S.: Two things made this humble newsletter writer very, very happy last week: this one 🫶 and this one 🫶 Ok, three things:

1. Should journalists try to make change in the world? 👉 LINK

Yes.

(Part of a project by 🧞Nicole Lewis and 🧞Lam Vo, who are building a resource "to help local journalists boost civic engagement by developing and implementing a theory of change for their work." Hell yeah.)

2. Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet's bet to combat news anxiety 👉 LINK

An approachable product to battle news anxiety and news avoidance with a more friendly tone? Yes, please. Interesting interview with head of product and growth 🧞Inanna Lallerstedt about SvD Kompakt:

"We thought maybe there could be an opportunity there to offer something new that is lighter with a personal style, letting you get to know the people that work on Kompakt. [...] The news is presented in a summarised form, often with a personal touch and a relaxed, humorous style – with the aim of leaving the users feeling smarter than before. It’s adapted to be a quick and comprehensible service for consumers with little time while still wanting to be in the loop."

Approachability, lightheartedness, conciseness. Three ingredients that might not fix everything in journalism – but can definitely help.

3. I have no business running a business. 👉 LINK

A raw and honest post by 🧞Qaanitah Hunter who, like many others out there, is figuring out what it means to be an entrepreneur in this industry, without ever being taught how to do it:

"How do you learn to become the kind of entrepreneur your mission deserves? How do you build something sustainable without losing the soul of what made you start in the first place?"

If you have answers, please put me in Cc.

📝 Do you want to share a link with the News Alchemists community?

About a product, a service, a story, a report, anything that will make us all think, or give us some hope, about how we can continue to innovate journalism in a people-centric way? Sponsor the next edition of the newsletter, and the 3rd spot is yours. Just reply to this email and let's talk.

4. What is local journalism’s value to audiences – and how can we grow it? 👉 LINK

The more people ask this question, the closer we get to genuinely improving things. I really like what 🧞Eric Ulken writes in this short piece:

"I believe local journalism has two distinct types of value:

the social good we all agree on,
and the personal value that actually motivates a user to pay.

To succeed as a social good, local journalism must first work as a product that brings value to end users, who represent both

our economic engine
and the source of our impact."

(The 'bulletpointsization' is mine, for emphasis.)

5. Jim Waterson on founding London Centric: "You've got to have a bit of joy" 👉 LINK

🧩 London Centric is one the successful newsletters covering the city I live in that the New Yorker wrote about earlier this year (in a story I shared in #12). In this interview, founder and editor 🧞Jim Waterson shares the secrets behind London Centric's success (almost 4,000 paying subscribers in 12 months), which include a belief in the power of human stories, sense of humour, and investigations about snails (ok, snail farming, but the idea of investigating snails is funnier).

6. We’re moving from one-way broadcasting to two-way storytelling 👉 LINK

And "the publishers who lean into this shift (who build direct relationships, invite co-creation, and use AI to elevate their journalism) are already seeing something powerful: deeper trust, stronger loyalty, and communities who show up again and again." Good post by 🧞Francesca Dumas.

7. From crisis to innovation: The Continent’s model for the future of news 👉 LINK

I already wrote about 🧩 The Continent in #25 but I'm very happy to do it again because this interview with publisher 🧞Sipho Kings is full of valuable lessons about the design and delivery choices that contribute to the success of the publication.

And the most clicked link from the previous edition is... 🥁

The framework for how people keep their communities informed that was recently published by the Journalism + Design Lab 👉 LINK

(I 100% copied the idea for this section from another great newsletter: Japan or Die.)