Will Meta's changes prompt a resurgence in publisher spaces and communities
Plus: All the journalism/media predictions for 2025 + Canada's news pay out from Google
Good afternoon,
Well, this is a bit like the first workout session of the year - you know it’s coming and you’ve just got to get yourself there. This newsletter took a break over Christmas and now it’s back to it for a weekly digest of What I’ve Been reading.
A recap for those who signed up over the festive period, I aim to bring you three or four pieces which I think are worth a browse and I always try to send this on a Wednesday afternoon. Mid-week, a bit of inspiration to help with driving through to the weekend.
So, I hope you had a good Christmas and a good start to 2025, let’s dive right in…
Does Meta’s change present an opportunity for publishers? - Nick Mitchell - previously of National World and now heading up Change.org’s digital strategy, then Nick has a different take on the decision by Meta to suspend its fact-checking operation and allow more overtly political content. There is, rightly, much concern about the move given the daily consumption and time spent on Meta platforms but Nick’s got a more optimistic take - and one that people could grab hold of. Will we see publishers comment spaces, apps, WhatsApp communities, well-moderated groups (even on Facebook itself) become places people want to spend time?
The $100million that’s landing in Canadian news outlets accounts - Ricky Sutton - I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s been happening in Canada over the past 18 months or so, since Meta’s news block and Google being forced to negotiate a settlement for paying for content. In the UK then we’re waiting to see how the government goes with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act implementation and how the CMA progresses. What’s key to note, as Ricky’s piece pulls out looking at Canada, is there will be a lot of wrangling over what the definition of ‘journalist’ is when/if it comes to some kind of settlement and how that money flows down to people doing the doing of journalism. In Canada, it’s worked out at around $13k per journalist for news outlets and lower per head for broadcasters.
All the 2025 journalism predictions - Press Gazette, Nieman Lab and Journalism.co.uk - like buses on LinkedIn, the end of year and start of this brought along scores of ‘what might happen next year/this year’ pieces. I don’t intend to write one, but there’s a couple from the lists I will pull out in particular.
Josh Awtry from Newsweek spoke about how it’s unlikely to be ‘one big hit’ that helps either revenue or audience, it’s the solid, steady, growth of multiple initiatives, products or tools which help grow both.
While Sarah Marshall in her Nieman Lab prediction - always on the money - spoke about how it’s giving people enough of any insight into the content and community available to convince them to subscribe or commit further with their time spent. Too much time spent up top (just seeing stories in Google Discover) or too often hitting a hard paywall will not work.
Thanks for reading. Good to get the first digest of this year back out there.
Some parish notices from me, we’ve expanded the work we do as Alma with The Lead to now work across its national edition after a busy year spent creating The Lead North portfolio of newsletters and stories.
And over the Christmas period I looked back at the impact Blog Preston had in its 15th year of operating. A huge amount to be proud of.
Thanks to all for their support and if you have something you think I should feature in the digest then please do ping it over, ed@almaonline.co.uk
All the best for the rest of the week.
Keep going.
Ed