How publishers are leveraging Substack for new audiences

Substack offers creators around the world a platform where they own their audience and can experiment with products and services that are either free or paid while building engagement outside of their normal subscriber base.

Brut India bet on platform users over news consumers – and it paid off

Mehak Kasbekar, Editor-in-Chief of Brut India, traced the product strategy behind the outlet’s growth during the past eight years to a single founding choice: skip owned infrastructure and build directly on social media, where the audience already lived.

Inspired tactics: A news subscription series – Part 1, First-party data and the first 100 days

In this series, Bihag Karnani, a senior product manager at Google, addresses some solutions to key questions that he sees publishers trying to answer by using the data and lessons learned the technology industry has found for converting readers into paying subscribers. He will also share examples of how publishers have used these concepts and their results.

From ‘messy’ to strategic: A framework for newsroom-creator partnerships

The appeal is obvious: creators have the reach, newsrooms have the credibility. Bridging those worlds has proven far from straightforward. Adriana Lacy spent two years in the trenches of creator collaborations – and presented a framework born from hard-won lessons at the 77th World News Media Congress in Marseille.

Building creator relationships that last: What newsrooms get wrong – and how to fix it

Newsrooms investing in creator-led content are increasingly discovering that the hardest part isn’t building an audience. It’s building the conditions that allow creators to thrive – and stay. 

Axios doubles down on local journalism and launches in more US markets

Founded in 2016, Axios quickly became a go-to source for millions in the United States by focusing on a handful of need-to-know news stories, covered concisely and delivered via email newsletters.

Rethinking Reddit: What the platform means for modern news publishers

Reddit recorded 55 billion views of news conversations over the past year. Rather than acting as a simple distribution channel, the platform is positioning itself as a place where publishers can add value by participating in discussions and engaging with communities.

‘We have never deviated’: Amedia plays the long game to digital subscription success

The Norwegian publisher’s steadfast commitment to its 14-year-old strategy continues to pay dividends, with 80 percent of the company’s subscription revenue now coming from digital. At the heart of this success is the +Alt bundle product, which the media house has expanded to Sweden and Denmark.

Platforms become top online news sources while trust in news falls to a record low – Digital News Report 2026

From young people’s news habits to the growing role of creators in journalism, the Reuters Institute’s latest report maps today’s key industry trends. We unpack the key findings – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

186 ideas in 30 minutes: NextGen AI Leaders get their projects underway in Marseille

As part of WAN-IFRA’s 12-week leadership programme, participants met ahead of the World News Media Congress to draft their first AI strategic solutions, walking away with a shared conclusion: they are not alone in this journey.