At a time of low trust in the news and a lack of willingness to pay for it, what can be done to encourage reader donations - even for the most resource-scarce newsrooms?
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The latest Reuters Digital News Report 2022 put trust in the UK news at 34 per cent and willingness to pay for the news at just nine per cent. Those are two big problems to overcome (though far from the only ones).
Meanwhile, on a local level, news publishers are told to look to the US for inspiration. Publishers like The Oaklandside in California and Nooz Hawk in Santa Barbara are just a couple of examples of how to take a more engaged approach to their traditional beats.
It also translates to dollars as readers are prepared to pay for journalism that they have directly asked for. As a result, the US is successfully moving away from a reliance on ad revenue. Case in point: although the US has lower levels of trust than the UK (26 per cent in the US), more people pay for it (19 per cent).
In this week's podcast, we hear from Mary Walter-Brown, co-founder and CEO of the News Revenue Hub, a non-profit US organisation, which works to help news publishers develop their own loyalty strategies, and inspire trust, engagement and long-term financial commitment amongst readers.
She provides a step-by-step guide to what is working stateside. For the smallest of newsrooms with ad hoc workflows and stretched teams, this means an uncomfortable reassessment of job roles and processes.
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