🔶 News Alchemists #46: "What actually makes for a *good* news experience?"

Hello and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

And a first welcome to new subscribers from Mediahuis, Yle, The i Paper, Inbox Collective, NRC, DPG Media, Future Journalism Today, EW, Open Newswire, Newspaper Design, Zout Magazine, Investigate Europe, Hogeschool Utrecht, Wisconsin Watch, and last but never least all of you brave souls working independently.

Last week I asked: "How can journalism become more people-centric?" Then I sort of changed my mind and unpacked that massive question into five smaller ones. (Not small, just a little small-er.)

Not many answers have come through yet, but the few that came in did not fail to make me think. Check this out:

Q: What does people-centric journalism look like?

A: It has a direct link with people. It aims for hearing back from people it reaches. It listens to them, it takes into account what people tells it, then filters it through its own expertise and understanding, then communicates back to see whether there’s a common ground. And once it finds that common ground, it builds on it. It keeps that conversation going and it cultivates a community out of that conversation. Then it uses that conversation to inform its plans: where to go next, what to cover, how to cover, and how to present. And it creates a feedback loop.

And this:

Q: Will being people-centric make us any money?

A: Hope so! If we are able to address people's REAL needs, they might be willing to pay. It will probably be money spent not for the journalism per se, but for the added value it provides (practical, emotional, etc.) I really believe this could be the basis for a new sustainable business model, at least for independent journalism.

If you're among the people who already shared their thoughts: Thank you!

If you're not, there's still time to have a go at it this week 👇

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Alright, it's time for the links 📚 See you next week! 👋

P.S.: Almost exactly one year ago, I published on LinkedIn a little post with "seven interesting articles about audience, community, and sustainability in journalism I came across in the last month or so". That little post had no idea it would become the unofficial first edition of a weekly newsletter but here we are. With special thanks to Mark, Chloé, Wytse, Lukrecijus, Madhav, and Juanita, who left a comment under that post and are still reading today 🫶

1. What actually makes for a "good" news experience? 👉 LINK

Super interesting research paper by Emmanuel Maduneme and Seth Lewis that describes how, for a news experience to be truly "good", it must be useful, usable, findable, credible, accessible, and desirable. Or, in one word...

"Valuable: This is the intersection where it all comes together—user needs combined with public service. Does news create meaningful, sustainable value in people's lives, individually and collectively?"

2. When the news flow becomes emotionally draining: Time to rethink? 👉 LINK

Talking about experience... Excellent article by 🧞Martin Schori (OG News Alchemists alert!) reflecting on how we can build a news experience "more people want – or even better, feel they must – be part of?"

3. How Communiqué is leveraging culture, community and collaboration to grow beyond a newsletter 👉 LINK

Great profile of newsletter-turned-media-organisation 🧩 Communiqué, which was started in 2021 by 🧞David Adeleke to cover Africa's creative economy, and is now growing through "knowledge sharing, collaboration and partnerships".

4. Taking journalism to the stage: lessons from newsrooms turning reporting into performance 👉 LINK

"Across Europe, journalism is stepping out of the newsroom and onto the stage through readings, monologues and shows. [...] The idea of performing news in front of an audience has gained traction amid a crisis of distance between the media and the public."

Why and how media organisations are bringing their journalism to the theatre. Featuring 🧩 Dossier, an investigative newsroom from Austria, and 🧩 Mensagem de Lisboa, a community-based initiative from Portugal (already featured in #17).

5. How to create a digital community for your newsroom 👉 LINK

This is a great guide published earlier this year by 🧩 KQED, a listener-supported public radio station in San Francisco. With useful tips on welcoming your first community members, moderating conflict, defining success, and much more.

6. Like a trauma hospital running a gun store in their lobby. 👉 LINK

"News organizations that produce good journalism but also publish incendiary, bigoted, and/or offensive "opinion" content is like a trauma hospital running a gun store in their lobby. You can be in the service of informing people or the business of provocation but audience tolerance for trying to do both and claiming one has nothing to do with the other is waning." By 🧞Heather Bryant. Nothing to add on my part.

7. Splice Beta's speaker presentations, aka a gold mine 👉 LINK

Here I'm cheating because this is a link that sends you to a dozen more links: the slides used by the speakers at Splice Beta, the journalism ""conference"" I'm most sad to have missed this year.* The presentations that are most relevant for the topics we discuss in here are:

• "Your reporting is nothing without impact. This is how you stand up for a community through journalism"
• "What you can learn from Swifties and BTS Army about turning communities into diehard fans"
• "How to stop reporting on your community and start working with them"

*Described by a friend who really wanted to rub it in as "small and intimate, it felt like a wedding of a good friend you actually want to attend and have fun at." 😑

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

The slides I used for my presentation at the SVDJ Incubator in Utrecht the week before:

Mattia Peretti | SVDJ Incubator | 28-Nov ’26

How can journalism become more audience people-centric?

Google Docs

Seven links are not enough? How about 250+? 🤓