research |
Medill Study Finds Preference for Female Voices and Local Accents
With podcasts and smart speakers on the rise, Northwestern professor Candy Lee wondered how consumer preferences in voices and accents might affect the news business. ...
update |
Local News Outlets Drop Paywalls for Pandemic Stories, but Gain Digital Subscribers Anyway
Even though many local news organizations have moved their COVID-19 stories outside their paywalls, several are seeing encouraging boosts in their digital subscriptions during the ...
trends |
Illinois Bill Would Create Local Journalism Task Force Legislation Includes Medill School in Proposed Fact-Finding Effort
A former television broadcaster turned legislator has filed a bill in the Illinois General Assembly that would create a task force to explore the state’s ...
trends |
Chicago Journalism Town Hall Tackles Tough Finances, Elusive Diversity
About 300 people attended a Chicago journalism town hall Sunday that was characterized by sharp comments about the search for financial stability and the need ...
trends |
New Kansas City Newsroom on the Runway: ‘Start-ups Tend to Help Each Other’
As digital news start-ups show the ability to attract and keep audiences, they are paving the way for more such outlets to fill the gaps ...
videos |
What We’ve Learned About News Consumer Behavior: 5 Videos
Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center is conducting groundbreaking research using large data sets on consumer behavior. Spiegel’s study of 13 terabytes of data from the ...
trends |
Chicago Becomes a Hotbed for News Collaboration Rather Than Competition
Chicago has long been known as a media battleground. While many cities are down to one daily newspaper — if that — Chicago has two, ...
Q&A |
Salt Lake Tribune’s Editor Expects ‘a Lot of Newspapers’ to Explore Nonprofit Status
The Salt Lake Tribune announced in November that it had received Internal Revenue Service approval to become the nation’s first legacy newspaper to go fully ...
engagement |
The Arkansas Gamble: Can a Tablet and a Print Replica Rescue Local News?
Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is pioneering a bold strategy to transition readers from print to digital by taking away their ...
engagement |
News Outlets Should Build Customer Lifetime Value Into Subscription Strategy, Researchers Say
What should be news organizations’ top financial strategy? Growing advertising revenue? Growing subscriptions? Neither, say researchers at Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center, who believe there’s ...
research |
Readers With Ad Blockers More Likely to Keep Subscriptions, Medill Study Finds Research on ‘Advertising Disengagement’ Suggests News Websites May Need to Change Ad Strategy to Keep Readers Paying
An analysis of subscriber behavior data by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center has found that a news organization’s customers who use an ad blocker are ...
engagement |
How News Outlets Can Make Email Newsletters More Effective
Everyone seems to produce email newsletters these days. But not everyone is doing it well. Which is a shame, since newsletters have been identified as a ...
Q&A |
NewStart Program Will Be ‘Matchmaker’ for Small Media Seeking New Owners
Jim Iovino is director of a new program called NewStart at West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media. NewStart matches small media outlets with people who ...
update |
Medill Local News Initiative Wins Google Innovation Award to Create Digital Reader Index
Building on major research into the behaviors of local digital readers, Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative and its Spiegel Research Center have been named recipients ...