🔶 News Alchemists #66: "Affiliation, not just access"

Hello, and welcome back to the News Alchemists newsletter!

And a first welcome to new subscribers from BehanBox, Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal, FT Strategies, West Leeds Dispatch, Median Research Centre, SimPPL, and all of you brave souls working independently.

Facing declining trust, unreliable social platforms, and search traffic weakened by AI summaries, the media industry is looking for a deeper way to hold onto audiences. Could the answer be a sense of “belonging”?

That's the opening paragraph of an article published by Nieman Lab last week – and if you've been reading this newsletter, you already know that my answer is: Yes!

The article – by 🧞Sarah Ebner, who recently stepped down from the role of director of editorial growth and engagement at the Financial Times – weaves together many of the topics we've covered in this newsletter over the last year, connecting belonging to listening, trust, and participation.

🧞Matt Adams, director of audience growth and engagement at 🧩 The Texas Tribune, explains that for him "belonging is trying to figure out ways for the audiences to feel heard and seen, to engage or learn more".

Belonging is not achieved through information alone. It requires active participation, which news organisations are trying to foster both online and offline.

"The most direct expression of belonging is our events", says 🧞Wencke Tzanakakis, head of 🧩 Die Zeit's membership programme:

“A subscriber who sits in a room with a Zeit journalist and challenges something they wrote isn’t just consuming journalism, they’re participating in it. That changes the relationship. It makes the subscription feel like affiliation, not just access.”

That sentiment is shared by 🧞Sarah Hoek, community manager at 🧩 Daily Maverick:

"I think our readers need a space to connect with like-minded people. And I also think they need a space where our journalists are accessible so that they can be a part of the reporting."

That's why in 2025 Daily Maverick launched 'Connect', an online community platform for its members that Sarah describes as "the ultimate Facebook group, if all the cool Facebook groups were in one place".

But there's another ingredient to the belonging recipe that might be the core motivating factor for participation: the feeling that you're contributing to something bigger.

By supporting The Texas Tribune, readers help to "sustain civic information in Texas"; while Daily Maverick readers feel part of the publication's mission of "creating a better South Africa" together.

And ultimately it all connects back to trust:

“I think trust is absolutely key to belonging,” Adams said. “You can’t belong to something unless you trust it, and you have to feel there are other like-minded people there.”

As it's always the case, nobody has it all figured out yet. The article ends on a note that invites us to consider not just "How can I do it too?" – with "it" being belonging – but also "How can I do it better?":

Tzanakakis fears that community-building tends to attract people who were already inclined to engage. “We’re probably quite good at deepening belonging for readers who are already committed,” she said. “But what about those who say they simply don’t have enough time for Zeit journalism in the first place?”

In other words: let's not trade reach for belonging. We need both.

Let me know what you think, and see you next week. Same place, same time. 👋

P.S.: The May conference tour continues with my first-ever stop in Brazil next week! I'll be at Festival 3i, organised by Ajor, on 29-30-31 May. See you there?

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

It's a three-way tie! Between Sarah Alvarez's framework on the three essential functions of news; this piece about Recorder building "a CRM that creates value for their community"; and Camilla Bath's post on LinkedIn.

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