20 Jan 2026 6 min read

🔶 News Alchemists #51: "Five things effective subscriptions leaders do"

Hello, and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

And a special first welcome to new subscribers from Rappler, Mutante, The Globe and Mail, Uusi Juttu, Scena9, Devex, OBC Transeuropa, Behanbox, the Constructive Institute, the European Commission, Startupticker, Data and AI Ethics PH, NLPO, the University of Amsterdam, and all of you brave souls working independently.

Did you see how long that paragraph was today? Most new subscribers told me they arrived here after reading my 2025 Freelance Year in Review – which was by far the most clicked link in the last edition, even if I put it at the bottom of the email because I wasn't sure if people would be interested.

Judging by the messages I received, that post clearly struck a chord with many readers:

Just wanted to say that your post with reflections about freelancing was really good. I admired your transparency about the struggles and hopes you experienced.

Thanks so much for sharing this! The part about saying yes to everything in your newsletter resonated with me. I find it hardest to balance the uncertainty with the new assignments coming your way: I want financial security, but also time to do deep work.

I saw one of your posts on LinkedIn about your journey last year as a freelancer and I found it super interesting and necessary because, as you said in the post, we don't talk about that enough.

Who knew that talking openly about anxiety and revenue could be so popular...

A massive thank you to everyone who messaged me in private and reacted on LinkedIn. We can do this.

Big thanks also to JournalismUK and the International Journalism Festival (aka: 'Perugia') for sharing my post in their newsletters.

And speaking about Perugia: if, like me, you sent a proposal and it was not selected, keep reading after the seven links. I have an idea.

📚 Enjoy the links, and see you next week!

1. How The Bureau of Investigative Journalism tracks impact 👉 LINK

Most times when someone asks me about how we might track the impact of journalism effectively, I recommend them to follow the work of 🧩 The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ). From now on, I'll send them this link.

Read this JournalismUK piece to learn about TBIJ's 4-step workflow for tracking impact; why they categorise instances of impact as gold, silver, or bronze; and how partnerships, co-publishing, and collaboration are at the core of TBIJ's framework.

2. How Venezuelan journalists broke the information blockade with a 10-hour broadcast of Maduro’s ouster 👉 LINK

"The news" rarely makes it into this newsletter, but today it does because this is a fantastic example of journalists from different outlets joining forces to help their audiences understand and make sense of an extremely chaotic situation affecting their country.

“In the early hours of Jan. 3, a colleague of mine told me, ‘There are bombings in Caracas,’ and we all sprang into action in the small virtual newsroom we have,” [...] What began as a live stream to report on the explosions in Caracas turned into a 10-hour and 48-minute broadcast that reported, explained and verified step by step the military operation [...] The broadcast surpassed 300,000 viewers on YouTube at times, and also served as a source of information for several international media outlets.

3. The digital news media environment does not only reproduce old class structures - it also reinforces them. 👉 LINK

I'll recycle something I wrote many editions ago about another link, in reference to the value proposition of this newsletter: File this one under "makes you think" because I'm not sure it will provide much hope.

Results from a recently published academic paper show that: "(1) the online news environment is more unequal than offline in terms of the number of news sources used, (2) a substantial share of the online sample does not access any news online, and (3) that education is a key driver of these inequalities. [...] The ongoing shift towards more online news environments may widen the gaps between the information rich and the information poor and reinforce longstanding social inequalities in news consumption."

4. Alignment as an extreme sport: 5 things effective subscriptions leaders do 👉 LINK

Great post on Audiencers with five recommendations for people leading subscription-based businesses who – inevitably – struggle to keep their organisation aligned around the same vision and goals.

You won't be surprised to know that point #4 is my favourite because, as always, it's (almost) all about the people.

5. Local news must invite youth into civic life — and lifelong connection 👉 LINK

Not the first and surely not the last time I find myself nodding along while reading a piece by 🧞Samantha Ragland and 🧞Kevin Loker of the American Press Institute. This one introduces a new event that API will host in March but, most interestingly, it paints a super clear picture of why it's important for local news organisations to engage the younger generations today in order to help them participate in society as they grow up.

(The fact that the article includes examples of local news organisations in the US doing so successfully is an added bonus.)

6. Inside Mediahuis’ ‘future audiences’ strategy and monetising the next generation 👉 LINK

On the topic of younger audiences: as 'head of future audiences monetization' at 🧩 Mediahuis, 🧞Liesbeth Nizet might have both one of the most interesting job titles and one of the most challenging jobs in the industry: figuring out "how can we make our news so interesting, or so relevant, or so representative for them that they want to pay for it?"

Great interview on the MediaVoices podcast, including Liesbeth's advice for connecting with future audiences.

7. That thing about facts and opinions 👉 LINK

Forgive me for the link in Italian but your translation tool of choice should help: 'Charlie' is a newsletter about "the cursed future of news media" written by 🧩 Il Post, an Italian news organisation I love and support as a paying member (already featured in #13).

Charlie's latest edition opened with a short introduction that I thought was worth sharing, as it includes an important reminder about the unreasonable belief that news organisations can ever fully separate facts and opinions.

So, that idea about Perugia proposals...

Did you send any proposals for the International Journalism Festival? Did they get accepted? My name was on six proposals (only two initiated by me) and you know how many were selected? Zero. None. Nessuna. 😢

And I know I'm not alone. I heard similar tales from many other people who submitted very interesting proposals – including a friend and reader of this newsletter who sent me this message:

I'm not sure if they were joking, but I actually think it's a great idea! With two tweaks:

The top 7 rather than top 5, of course.
Not any proposal: specifically the most newsalchemists-y, or most people-centric proposals.

And you know what? Go big or go home: maybe we look for some funding to use the Top-7 not only for a newsletter but also as the programme for our own event!

(The News Alchemists Festival, anybody? I'm obviously getting ahead of myself but it has a good ring to it, doesn't it?)

Let's do this: if you submitted a great proposal for Perugia that wasn't selected, on a topic more or less in line with what we discuss in this newsletter (audiences, community, sustainability, membership, etc.), share it through this form.

I'll collect your answers over the coming days and share what I deem to be the 7 most interesting ones in next week's newsletter – provided you send me enough proposals of course 😬 (Emphasis on "what I deem": it's going to be a highly subjective exercise.)

The idea of the event is probably crazy, but what do we have to lose? At worst, I will help you identify other journalism conferences that might be interested in your session.

Click here to share your proposal

P.S.: I want to believe that this disclaimer is not needed but I'd be very sad to be misunderstood because I love Perugia. This is NOT meant to be a shot at the International Journalism Festival' organisers for not selecting my proposals or yours. Every year they get flooded with hundreds of proposals, and they've been very transparent about it over the last few years, sharing what they try to do to make space in the programme for as many deserving sessions as possible.