What do younger audiences want from news organisations? We asked them...
We have to build news products that Gen Z and Gen Alpha want to engage with, because a future where journalism is no longer relevant is unthinkable
Hello
It’s been a sobering week for journalism in the UK. I’m thinking of all my former colleagues at Reach after the announcement that around 450 jobs are being cut. If you’re impacted and I can help in any way, please do get in touch.
This week’s newsletter is all about young audiences. If you like what you read, please do consider referring a friend, using the button below. If you’re here because someone forwarded you this newsletter and you’re not yet subscribed, please do click the button at the end to sign up for free.
‘Think about the user first and everything else will follow’ Larry Page, Alphabet
I’ve just been lucky enough to spend a week in Cape Town with a phenomenal group of journalists from across Europe and Africa, design sprinting our way to becoming more relevant to youth audiences as part of the UCLan Journalism Innovation and Leadership programme. This course, led by Dr Francois Nel and supported by Google News Initiative, has played a huge part in my life over the past 10 months, expanding my thinking around journalism through a community of people I’d never otherwise have had the opportunity to meet.
Our group in Cape Town. I got a bit carried away here in the back row
Central to our intensive studies this week was a design sprint. Led by journalist, AI expert and design thinker Laurens Vreekamp, our cohort of 30 or so journalists spent five days developing solutions to the challenge…
How can we keep engaging younger audiences in a sustainable way?
We were following this five-step Sprint process, which you can learn more about here
The process is designed to rapidly solve big challenges, create new products or improve existing ones by compressing what could otherwise be months of work into a few days. Instead of endless discussions and meetings, Post It notes and whiteboards bring out the ideas and drawing is encouraged in place of lengthy text. And a series of quirky exercises and shared experiences strengthen the connections with the teams you’re working in to make the experience as rich and fruitful as possible.
What young people want
The first phase was all about gathering data and insights from our users - the young people - and so we started by interviewing seven twenty-somethings from South Africa. Here are some of the key themes that came through:
CREATORS - They want to be seen and heard - to create as well as consume content
NEWS AVOIDERS - They tend to avoid news, they find it repetitive and feel it has a negative impact on their mental health
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW - But they are interested in what’s happening where they live right now that will impact their daily lives
CONNECTORS - And they like human stories - they’re looking for connection and they want to see voices of people like them in the media
MASS CONSUMERS - They may have well-documented short attention spans but they spend more time on their phones than any other generation
BUDGETERS - They tend to have limited budgets and most wouldn’t consider paying for news - but they do pay for subscriptions to other things
FACT CHECKERS - Most of the young people we spoke to didn’t take TikTok as gospel. In fact, they wanted to verify the news they discovered on social media
PURPOSE-DRIVEN - The biggest fear of some of the young people we spoke to was not finding a purpose in life and they wanted news that made them stand up and do something
The fabulous group of young people we interviewed
How Might We address this?
We questioned to discover insights, not solutions - to identify their needs rather than jumping to conclusions. And with all their responses, we asked a series of How Might We (HMW) questions to define the challenge we wanted to solve, reframing the challenges they posed as opportunities:
HMW inspire young people in pursuit of purpose/ positive action?
HMW make a positive contribution to the lives of young people?
HMW create a news product for people who want to be the news?
HMW engage with young people on what really matters to them day to day?
HMW build meaningful connections and trust with young people?
In groups, we conjured up ideas for solutions, with no idea too big or too crazy. We created brands using AI presenters who looked like the young people using them; TikTok Duets between news presenters and youngsters; personalised apps built around short form video; Whats App channels to enable users to submit and choose what mattered to them; and Time Out functions for young people to be able to switch off the news to protect their mental wellbeing.
We drew sketches of our ideas and built prototypes - from a beautifully illustrated paper scroller to a real working TikTok account. We created brands and identities, audiences initiatives and monetisation strategies all based around the user needs of our young audiences. We presented them to our colleagues and we each voted on our favourites.
And then those young people were brought back in to tell us what they thought - how they would interact with our prototypes and what they liked and disliked about them. It was terrifying, but enlightening. In the main, they loved that we’d listened to them and reinforced the huge opportunity in targeting young people - who spend all their time online and who just want to see themselves reflected in the content they consume.
Key takeaways
If you’re not asking young people what they want and really listening to how they respond, you’ll never build a product that works for younger audiences.
We need to rethink established priorities, practices and assumptions around young people and the best way to do that is to assemble diverse teams to think differently and be more representative of your audiences.
We have to build news products that young people want to engage with, because a future where journalism is no longer relevant is unthinkable.
Stories of the week
Given that I’ve had a week of focusing on younger audiences, I thought I’d share three of the most interesting links to practical tips and information that I’ve come across:
🍄 Marit Tronier Halvordsen, Head of Target Groups at DN Media Group – Norway’s leading business newspaper, recently spoke at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Asia conference about their new approach to young readers at the biggest publication in their portfolio: Dagens Næringsliv (DN). They’re using gamification to attract younger audiences, collecting data from them and targeting content with the aim of building brand loyalty for the future, when they might be willing to subscribe. There’s a good summary from The Audiencers here.
📈 Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO is the most downloaded podcast in the UK on all audio platforms. This is a podcast that has transformed the podcast market and according to Spotify, 74% of its audience are between 18 and 34. So, insights from its marketing director, Grace Andrews, are well worth listening to. Meet the Marketing Genius Behind Steve Bartlett from Callum McDonnell is a masterclass in how to build a brand on social. There are many lessons to learn for news organisations here.
🍔 LADbible Group reaches two thirds of 18-34-year-olds in the UK through its growing collection of brands. This week, Media Voices spoke to Group Operations Lead Jake Strong-Jones on their approach to social and spotting trends among younger audiences and there were some great takeaways for all newsrooms.
AI experiment of the week
Tool: https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/
Experiment: Machine Learning with Google is a web-based tool that allows anyone to create their own machine learning model without using code. It’s a really simple insight into the power of machine learning and can train a model using images, audio or video. For my experiment, I inputted 10 pictures of cats and 10 of dogs to teach the machine to tell the difference between cats and dogs. I then gave it a picture of my own puppy (Mowzel) and it told me it was 100% dog. Success!
Thanks to Laurens Vreekamp for introducing us to this little tool, which we also trained to spot the difference between us dancing the Macarena and a traditional Somali dance 💃🏻 But it’s not all cats, dogs and dancing - crucially tools like this have been used in some serious investigative journalism projects too. Here’s a brilliant guide from the Global Investigative Journalism Network to using AI and Satellite Imagery for storytelling with some impressive examples.
Please do get in touch - I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you like it, please share with friends. And remember to hit subscribe if you’re not already signed up.
Until next time.
Jacqui