If your Journalism is not mission-led, what is it? Insights from Newsrewired 2025.

Credit: Mark Hakansson / Marten Publishing

There’s lots of complex conversations happening right now about how to help journalists cut through the AI noise and the solutions offered are often complex themselves.

But sometimes someone says something quite simple - and it hits you like a sledgehammer.

That’s what it felt like listening to Jakob Moll from Zetland at this week’s Newsrewired conference at the Royal College of Nursing, London. Jakob is a very charismatic speaker, opting for personal stories over slides and this format reflects his editorial strategy - reconnecting audiences with news through authentic relationships.

I really enjoyed his talk because he spoke about the ‘traffic paradigm’ which is that moment when you’re launching a news brand where the audience starts becoming a faceless blob behind the analytics dashboard. But, for Jakob’s team at Uusi Juttu they seem to be doing everything to stop this from happening - making subscriptions (or rather membership) the primary KPI. For Uusi Juttu, their personality-led journalism IS the brand, replacing the polished veneer of the traditional newsroom with authentic ‘Kodak moments.’

They also seem to be extremely mindful that audiences are now 100% time poor - so their audio output (both in format and rime of release) aims to fit into that precious attention economy.

It was an inspiring talk and I wondered for a moment how newsrooms would change if you took away all targets with only subscription growth remaining. It’s something that I’ve tried, albeit slightly differently, with my own editorial teams when something has changed in the algorithm and content isn’t performing. Rather, than just peddle on, it’s always much better to allow the team to breathe, rediscover where the audience is and then experiment with a new approach. I think Jakob’s team takes this one step further so it was a refreshing voice to hear amongst all the ‘let’s optimise purely for AI’ noise.

Likewise, it was also interesting to hear Liz Wynn from The Guardian about not only their mission-led approach to journalism, but also how they deploy their subscription teams when there is a traffic spike. The team now plays a critical role in the newsroom - identifying trending articles that are leading to conversions and amplifying their reach, for example, through paid media. It was also great to hear about not only the variety of subscription products they offer, but also how these products are regularly updated so the subscriber feels they are always getting extra value.

But the mission-led point was critical in both speeches - and it’s not just at Uusi Juttu or The Guardian - if you receive a newsletter (for instance) from GB News, you’re not just getting a news update, you’re getting a war cry from the frontline rallying against the oppressors (I might exaggerate somewhat). But mission-led journalism doesn't have to be a natural reflection of a more partisan media environment. As the Uusi Juttu example shows, it can be more about editorial transparency - demonstrating what you do as a newsroom to an audience that may not understand the function of journalism and who might, say, engage more with creators than journalists.

I’d also call out the general head-nodding around the room when the speakers mentioned that simply taking moments to thank readers for their attention (or for their membership) always pays dividends.

It’s like my aunt always says, saying thanks doesn’t cost a penny.