Informed 09


2025, says Newman, are those who sit “in the middle”, with a product that readers will not pay for and a content diet that is short of trust with advertisers. Such outlets, are “really struggling”, says Newman. He warns of a gulf in society between a highly-engaged minority of readers who pay for news and a larger group who “don’t care very much about what is going on”. Around 10% of the British population actively avoids news, he says. Significantly, the UK’s two biggest


free-to-access online news titles (beyond the BBC) are encouraging loyal readers to pay. Mail Online has more than 100,000 subscribers for its premium Mail+ service. Te Sun has launched Sun Club, a £2-a-month package that includes access to popular content including Jeremy Clarkson’s column and the Dear Deirdre agony aunt feature. But Reach, the UK’s biggest national


and regional publisher, remains commited to a strategy based on growing advertising revenue by increasing page views. Its journalists have been set individual page view targets of 250,000-a-month and upwards. In 2022, Reach had expanded across the UK, launching 26 new websites and hiring 400 journalists to fight an online turf war with regional publishing rivals. Ten it cut more than 10% of the workforce. With a reduced cost base and a focus on meeting the demands of online readers, Reach last year increased page views and boosted profits by 6% to £102.3m. Bea Bennet, NUJ senior campaigns and communications officer, says many journalists face unacceptable personal risk as they go about their daily work. “We are really concerned about the abuse that journalists get online and we don’t think the online platforms are going enough to address this,” she says, calling on Ofcom to use the Online Safety Act (OSA) to compel social media companies to combat the issue. Te NUJ is pressing the government


for legislation to tackle SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation)


abuses of the legal system, which are oſten used to obstruct investigative journalists. As talks begin on the renewal of the BBC’s charter in 2027, the union will argue for sustainable funding for the BBC, including protection of jobs at the World Service. Te biggest cloud looming over the


sector in 2025 is artificial intelligence. Hundreds of national and regional news publishers came together on 25 February to swamp the news-stand with identical front pages that called on the government to “Make It Fair” and drop plans for a copyright exemption that would allow tech companies to scrape online content without paying for it. In a landmark case due in June, Gety Images is suing Stability AI, alleging that the AI firm illegally used its copyrighted images to train its generative AI models. Owen Meredith, chief executive of the News Media Association, says the government’s idea that an AI copyright exemption would help grow the UK economy is “fundamentally-flawed”. He believes the OSA and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act will help ensure that publishers are fairly compensated by big tech for use of their content.


Journalists need to stop seeing AI


simply as a threat to their livelihoods, says Charlie Becket, director of the Journalism AI project at the London School of Economics. “I want to get away from the idea of AI writing the stories or creating the videos,” he says. “It is much more of an office tool rather than a robot reporter.” Crime reporters will automate some daily tasks, while investigative journalists and science writers can siſt vast data sets. “If you are in newsroom that is any good, AI will be increasingly be built into your CMS.” At a recent London Press Club event,


former Independent editor Chris Blackhurst suggested publishers would use productivity gains from AI to compel journalists to produce more “guff”. Becket argues that, with Google Search already using AI to provide basic answers


to online queries, SEO clickbait has lost currency and publishers have to be “adding some kind of value” with their content. Hannah Williams, managing director, digital content at Immediate Media, says the magazine publisher will incorporate AI tools for “shortcuting aspects of drudgery and admin within the editorial workflow”, including “unglamorous tasks like content tagging and creating metadata”. Tis will allow journalists to spend more time on “creative, collaborative, and experimental aspects of content creation”. Immediate recently opened a


test kitchen to produce video and photography content for its Good Food and olive brands. “We can invite our audience into the Good Food kitchen and let them get to know us as a group of people,” says Lily Barclay, content director for the brands. “Tat kitchen is equipped with cameras above each work station.” Tis social media-friendly strategy helps to up-skill magazine journalists in film techniques and drives interest in the print product. Good Food’s Christmas edition sold more than 500,000 copies from the news-stand.


But if journalism is to face its difficult


future with confidence it will need a fluid recruiting pipeline that does not leak the best talent to public relations or other sectors. “Some potential journalism students will assume without knowing that everything is going to be done by AI and turn away from a career in journalism,” warns Terry Kirby, senior lecturer in journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London. Te number of places available on the most prestigious journalism courses in the UK has significantly declined since 2020-2021, while traditional pathways into national media from the regional press have all but disappeared. “Te knock-on effect for journalism is that all this is reducing the pool of students who might go on to work in newsrooms,” says Kirby. In every sense, journalism in 2025 needs to be telling beter stories.


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