The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices

On this week's episode we hear from The New Republic's Literary Editor Laura Marsh. She tells us about what makes working in an audio format especially rewarding, best practice for evolving your audio product, and why non-news content is such a good touchpoint for audiences. In the news roundup the team discuss why Facebook's outage isn't necessarily the best news for publishers, the needless and futile rollercoaster of Ozy Media, and why The Daily Mail thought it could use a lawyer's tweets as a column. We somehow forgot that next week is our 200th episode.

This week we hear from Kaya Yurieff, The Information's Creator Economy Reporter. We talked about how she covers an industry that is so new and sprawling, some of the challenges of being a creator, and how it fits with The Information's other coverage. She also explains why businesses should take creators seriously, and why she expects to see more Creator Economy reporters at other outlets in the future. In the news round-up, Chris, Esther and a freshly holiday-ed Peter discuss the closure of Ozy Media; the Theranos of publishing that none of us had heard of until this week. Facebook ends up in hot water yet again and will probably be dealing with fresh scandal as soon as this episode is released.

The Manchester Mill is a subscription-based newsletter for the modern age. In this interview its founder Joshi Herrmann tells us why good local journalism demands having boots on the ground, how the sins of the past are impacting the journalism of today, and how he plans to expand into new cities and new revenue streams. In the news roundup we're joined by founder of The Business of Content Simon Owens to discuss what we've learned about newsletters from one year of Casey Newton's Substack. We take a look at everything from newsletter discovery, to price anchoring, to whether the wave of new launches has already crested. It's an unexpected Newsletters Special!

On this week's episode of Media Voices we hear from David Floyd, MD of Social Spider, a community interest company that publishes five community newspapers in London. He tells us about finding a new model for local news - one that's maybe commercially viable enough - and about why local news matters. In the news roundup the team discusses the revelations from the Wall Street Journal's ongoing publication of The Facebook Files, the launch of News UK's talkTV, and ask if anyone still uses Clubhouse. Chris and Peter have a Fleetwood Mac singalong.

In this special Conversations episode we hear about the past, future and most importantly present of robot journalism. Automated journalism has been around for many years now, delivering value back to the parent newsrooms that use it effectively. AI tools allow newsrooms to tailor the output of the robots to fit their house style, to interview people for inclusion in the created article - and to allow the newsrooms’ human writers to spread their wings.  In this episode Cecilia Campbell of United Robots helps myth-bust some of the common fallacies about what robot journalism can - and can’t - do. From the integration of video or interactive features to what it allows the newsroom to concentrate on beyond rote data work. To help illustrate what is possible we’re also joined by Ard Boer, Product Manager for Sport at NDC Mediagroep, who tells us how their sports team is making the most of robot journalism. For more information on United Robots or its work with publishers, you can visit https://unitedrobots.ai/

On this special episode of Media Voices, former Editor in Chief of EMPIRE Terri White takes us through the changes she made during her time at the magazine, from opening up the brand to a wider audience of both readers and contributors, to inspiring staff and cultivating the passionate community of new and longer-term subscribers. She also expounds her reasons for resigning from EMPIRE - a role that she still today calls the best job in the world - and the realities of juggling family life with a top job in media.

In this week's episode we hear from Sophie Cross, the founder and editor of Freelancer magazine. She tells Peter about her penchant for writing business plans, the freelance community that inspired the Freelancer magazine launch, and how she kept the spark going after the initial rush of the first issue. In the news roundup the team discusses the remarkable e-commerce based turnaround of Future plc, Twitter's revenue results, and ask if Facebook is launching its independent publishing platform Bulletin in a smart way. See you later in summer!

In this episode Future's Chief Audience and Ecommerce Officer Aaron Asadi tells us about where the ecommerce function sits within Future, how it is developing in relation to audience development, and creating content for affiliate ecommerce revenues across a huge range of brands. In the news roundup the team discusses whether climate change needs to become a part of every journalist's beat, the internal wars going on at GB News and Twitter sunsetting its Fleets feature. Put in the spotlight, Chris struggles to find the audio tweet function within 30 seconds.

This week we hear from Marcela Kunova, Editor at Journalism.co.uk. She’s recently launched a newsroom innovation mentorship programme which will pair experienced industry professionals with local and regional journalists in the UK, with the aim of nurturing innovation in audience engagement, AI, editorial strategy and more. We talked about what she’s hoping to achieve with the programme, how she translated Newsrewired to a virtual event, and why it’s so important to support freelancers. In the news roundup the team discuss a report on the broken link between reach and revenue, and ask if we can ever get past the 'publishers vs. Duopoly' industry mindset. We also discuss the closure of Knewz, how privacy is driving advertisers to Android, and genuinely horrifying behaviour from a BBC non-exec director. Chris lives under a busy flightpath now, apparently.

This week, we hear from Chris Duncan, CEO of UK Publishing at Bauer Media Group. He joined the company just a few weeks after last year's lockdown, so he talks about what it's been like leading Bauer through such a turbulent year, their wins and losses throughout the pandemic, and which trends he's seen accelerated in the business. He also discusses how Bauer's business priorities have changed post-Covid, and what it's like heading a magazine company after over a decade working at a news publisher. In the news roundup we discuss the data behind the end of the Trump Bump (and where we can gin up some controversy next), then ask if the BBC needs to be objective about climate change and ask if Microsoft is the unlikely saviour of micropayments. A joke sails over Esther's head.