Why personality-led journalism isn’t just branding – it's revenue infrastructure
SMS continues to prove that audiences want brief and trustworthy updates that haven't been tainted by algorithms
– 5 min read
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Over the last year, I have heard multiple variations of the same question: if email and search are being rebuilt around AI, what’s the last remaining and trustworthy direct line to our audience?
When Google and Apple control the overwhelming majority of email clients and are actively testing AI distillation layers that summarise entire inboxes, it’s fruitless to assume that a million‑person list translates into a million chances to connect. It’s also a dramatic overstatement to think that email has reached a saturation point or should not be a balanced part of any media company’s engagement efforts.
In tandem, search results pages are reshaping around AI overviews that sit above traditional links, absorbing the value of your work without sending you the traffic that used to justify the effort. Publishers are still frantically stocking the library shelves, but readers are being handed AI CliffNotes in the lobby instead, and that is where their attention now accumulates.
In this environment, personality‑led journalism is what can get people out of the lobby and back into the library, but only if you rebuild a direct, defensible relationship with the people who care most about your reporting.
What newsrooms are getting wrong about "personality"
There has been a steady shift toward personality‑driven journalism for at least five years, and the last 12 to 24 months have accelerated it. Trust in traditional institutions has eroded. A lot of focused attention has moved toward personalities and creators that people identify with and want to hear from directly.
The most common mistake I see is the belief that you can bolt a personality or creator onto your news operation and absorb their audience through osmosis. It is convenient to think this way. It is also wrong.
