🔶 #58: Wait, is journalism in Europe actually thriving?
Hello, and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!
And a first welcome to new subscribers from The Initium, MediaVoices, Louisville Public Media, The Outlier, Block Club Chicago, Centella, News Relay Network, ICFJ, Tiny News Collective, Keskisuomalainen, Flipping Pages Media, Reynolds Journalism Institute, ATEX, A Growing Culture, University of Canterbury, and all of you brave souls working independently.
⚠️ Last week marked another important "milestone" in the growth of this newsletter: for the first time I skipped an edition without informing you in advance. The reason? I got sick and just didn't manage to finish it in time 🤷♂️ A good reminder that as much as I like to talk about the importance of showing up consistently, #lifehappens.
But I'm back, and today I want to talk about journalism in Europe 🇪🇺 – as defined by geography, not by EU membership or by Brexit. I've been planning this edition for a while, and it means a lot to me. Here's why:
I’m an Italian person living in London, but in my mind neither of those things define me because, above all, I feel European.
I grew up in Italy 🇮🇹, I studied and worked in France 🇫🇷 and the Netherlands 🇳🇱, my fiancée is from Romania 🇷🇴, and my first real job was at the European Journalism Centre. There I worked with journalists from all over the continent, organising events and training sessions in 16 cities across 11 European countries over three years.
Europe is my playground. Over the years I've met crazy talented people who work tirelessly to make journalism more useful, interesting, and relevant. I’m lucky to say that many of them are reading these words right now.
For a long time, it was literally my job to support and celebrate the best of the best in European journalism. I miss that.
So today I want to celebrate the many European organisations that embody people-centricity in everything they do, proving that a sustainable future for journalism is not a dream. It already exists.
📚 Today’s links are about some of them – seven links about European organisations doing cool shit that makes me hopeful. (And these are only from the last couple of months.)
And speaking of people-centricity, this week's generous sponsor, PushPushGo, is hosting a webinar on how publishers can build stronger reader habits:
How do you move readers from social media to your own platform – and keep them coming back?
Relying on social media algorithms to reach your audience is a bit like building a house on rented land. Many publishers are realising that the only way to ensure long-term stability is to own the relationship directly.
So if you’re looking to create a strong community around your newsroom, PushPushGo and Contribly are hosting a webinar that will showcase results and strategies from what they’ve learnt working with publishers across Europe and the US. Join next March 25th at 2pm CET.
See you next week! 👋
P.S.: I'd love to do similar editions about different regions of the world. Do you want to recommend organisations from Latin America, Africa, and Asia that I should spotlight? Send them my way.