Julia Majale is Managing Director of Tuko.co.ke, Kenya’s largest online news website – particularly popular for its entertainment and news content targeting younger audiences.
An accredited journalist with a communications degree from Daystar University (2015) and an Executive Masters in Media Leadership and Innovation at Aga Khan University (2023), Majale was propelled into the industry by her childhood in rural Kenya. “There was no TV at the time, and my dad loved reading newspapers; he used to buy three different daily newspapers every day,” she recalls.
This instilled a passion for news which, she says, has morphed into a passion for digital media – and sparked her meteoric trajectory over the past eight years.
She joined Tuko.co.ke as Online News Editor in 2016, after stints as online sub-editor, social media editor and video editor at Standard Media Group. Within a year, she was promoted to Monitoring Editor, then Managing Editor for three years, before assuming the mantle of Managing Director last year.
Under her guidance Tuko.co.ke – founded in 2015 by Pan-African Digital MediaCompany, Legit – was recognised as the best digital news platform in 2019 and 2021 and ranked first among publishers with the highest followers engagement on Facebook pages in the country. In March, the award-winning outlet reached one million subscribers on its YouTube channel.
Majale is listed among the Top 25 Women in Digital 2021 by Kenya’s SoMA Awards and is the winner of the Trailblazer Award 2023 from the Kenya Editors Guild for redefining the boundaries of journalism.
She shares learnings on engaging audiences and building communities in 21st century newsrooms, with and for tomorrow’s leaders.
What implications did the recent Gen Z political activism in Kenya have on local media, and what lessons for abroad – especially in the year of AI Elections?
It’s a powerful reminder of the growing influence of young people and how they shape the political landscape. I consider myself a millennial and we sort of took a back seat in politics. This generation wants to be part of the conversation.
And this has shaped even how the local media is now producing content, because it’s made sure that there’s a critical need to provide platforms where these voices can be heard and where these issues can be addressed.
Media outlets have had to adapt. Before, panel discussions on TV featured senior political analysts as the figureheads – but right now, you’ll see a lot of panels where young people are involved. They’re being invited to speak and to share their ideas, and be a part of this conversation.
So the implications for media outlets is that you have to incorporate these young people, and incorporate the digital and social media strategies that they relate to and they resonate with, because they are tech savvy.
The protests also provided lessons for newsrooms worldwide – especially in the era of AI-driven elections, as it shows the importance of transparency, fact checking, and maintaining credibility in newsrooms.
‘Gen Z demands authenticity. They will engage you. You have to respect their intelligence and acknowledge the role that they are playing in societal change.’
Tuko.co.ke professes a distinctly audience-first approach: what does this mean to you, and how does it play out in your editorial and production process?
It means that every decision we make in how we produce, package, present and distribute our content is centred around the needs, interests, and values of our audience. It means that we understand and care about what our readers want, and deliver content that resonates with them in a very meaningful way.
We actually listen to what our audience wants, what their needs are, and we work a lot with user generated content (UGC). In our editorial process, we actively engage with our audience to understand their concerns, their preferences, and then we work with this.
We also use data analytics to track the readers, their behaviour, their feedback, and of course, we always ensure our content is relevant, so that it meets their needs, and also timely.
Our production process is similarly geared towards accessibility, user experience, and engagement: you can engage our content in any of our platforms, and our team is there to respond, so people feel that they’re heard, and listened to. So the user experience is very, very good.
We also use a lot of mobile-friendly formats, where we engage with visual content. The photos, captions and content that we use on our social leads is very different from what the rest do; we mostly use collages now – and I’ve also noticed Daily Mail are doing the same. On Facebook, for instance, we constantly have to adapt our format to meet its constantly changing algorithms.
As a young newsroom leader with a mostly youthful team that reflects your audience: what are you doing to meet, engage and grow that audience, that is distinctly different?
Our approach is rooted in the understanding that today’s audience value immediacy, and interactivity. That’s why we’re always interacting with our readers, and that’s how we are building a community.
We’re not just delivering news, we are fostering a community, and the audience feels involved and empowered.
Also, we prioritise multi-platform engagement, so we are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all these so we can reach all these people, wherever they are, not just via our website. This means we recognise how they consume our content across the various channels – and we also live stream specific content, like the Gen Z protests.
Because we are young, we are agile, and we encourage innovation; we encourage our team to experiment with new storytelling methods – whether it’s short form, long form, infographics, or interactive polls.
And our Research and Development team is extremely active, always researching, always experimenting. We will try something for a few months; if it works, great. If it doesn’t work, we move on.
This doesn’t just make news informative, it also makes news engaging and shareable.
‘This approach has ensured our content is not just consumed passively; people interact with it, they argue, debate and share; they amplify to other readers.’
As a digital native at the forefront of an industry undergoing massive change, what do you consider crucial to newsrooms now?
Change is the only constant. Social media’s advent was a big deal. Now we have AI, and it’s changed everything in the newsroom. There are now roles that you could have never dreamt of a few years ago; right now, we have people who just do TikTok. That’s not something you could have imagined.
So technology will continue to reshape how we consume our news, and the industry has to evolve with it.
It’s essential to stay ahead of trends, from adopting AI – we keep saying you adapt, or die – to understanding the shifts in behaviour. Because even audiences change: today, they are consuming one thing, a week from now, they want something different. You can’t keep feeding them something they are not interested in. You have to keep shifting with them.
It’s good to always foster a culture of innovation and inclusivity, making sure your teams, however young they are, that they are heard, they are listened to because they bring in fresh perspectives. I consider myself young, but there are things for sure I don’t know, and I’m learning, like TikTok…
Another major learning is the importance of diversity in content. So your media, your outlet, should reflect a broad range of perspectives, whether it’s male voices, different sectors… without losing the voices of the people you consider “normal” or the common citizen. All these voices reflect your audiences.