Another believer in staying close to citizens’ concerns is Fabrice Fries, CEO of AFP. Since 2016, AFP has had a deliberate strategy of putting boots on the ground. In his words, remaining relevant has ben “an obsession” for AFP.
Topic: being relevant to society by being inclusive To many Forum’s speakers, being relevant to society means addressing audiences across all age groups and backgrounds. That can come from being a media group that offers a range of products for different segments or consciously targeting groups that could be left out, in particular Generation Z (born post 2000), audiences from migrant backgrounds or local communities (as SVT has done as described in the previous section). Stefano Feltri, Director of Domani and Gard Steiro, Editor-in-Chief of Verdens Gang illustrated two completely different approaches to providing quality news coverage for Generation Z, while Patrick Weinhold, editor-in-chief of social media at Tagesschau, described how they are also targeting Generation Z through their ‘digital with tradition’ strategy. Gabrielle Boeri-Charles and María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros Garcia discussed reaching new audiences through podcasts, and stressed their growing impact. David Schraven, Founder of Correctiv, illustrated how to reach out to local communities, while Thembi Wolf, Editor at Krautreporter, media activist and a founder member of the Mediamacher/innen association, demonstrated how the German media are failing to reach out to people from a migrant background. Addressing new generations through a conventional newspaper Stefano Feltri, described the philosophy of Domani, a newspaper which launched in autumn 2020 in Italy. He illustrated how a conventional approach can potentially meet the demand for quality journalism, and discussed the importance of being relevant to all age groups if a business model is to work. Domani was designed to fill a gap in the market for a progressive newspaper sensitive to issues such as inequality and the environment. It is backed by a foundation that leaves the editorial team with complete independence. Domani has a print and an online version on the grounds that “it is not possible to be taken seriously in Italy without a print version”. “The Italian media market is still very old-fashioned…The Baby Boomers don’t trust digital.” At the same time, Domani believes it is building credibility with the under-25’s by not patronising them but really listening to them, making them feel part of the product. However, reconciling the two audiences is a challenge: “In Italy younger readers are interested in fact-based news, they think you are not focusing on what matters if you cover political debate. Gender is not relevant for Baby Boomers but is for the younger audience. You have to find a balance.” Addressing new generations through new formats: VG TV and Tagesschau VG TV is part of the same corporate group as Verdens Gang, Norway’s largest tabloid newspaper. It is an online video news channel for a young audience with 2.5 million users.2 It aims to tackle complex topics for an audience in their mid-twenties that prefer video to reading an article. “It is not just about shorter material, it is more complex”, Gard Steiro, Editor-in-Chief of Verdens Gang told the audience. It is about content, context, a different tone of voice and understanding how to tell the story to an audience that does not read a newspaper every day, and using journalists from the same age 2
Norway has a population of 5.4 million.
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