{"id":3010,"date":"2020-10-02T13:02:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T17:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jem.utk.edu\/?p=3010"},"modified":"2025-09-03T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:46:14","slug":"jenkins-explores-digital-news-trends-of-local-regional-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cci.utk.edu\/jem\/2020\/10\/02\/jenkins-explores-digital-news-trends-of-local-regional-newspapers\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenkins Explores Digital News Trends of Local, Regional Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/\">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism<\/a>\u00a0published Assistant Professor Joy Jenkins\u2019 digital news report titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/publish-less-publish-better-pivoting-paid-local-news\">Publish Less, but Publish Better: Pivoting to Paid in Local News<\/a>\u201d on Sept. 24. Her research revealed that newspapers need to shift their focus to maintain lasting relationships with their consistent viewers rather than trying to reach more audiences and \u201cfly-by\u201d visitors.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2985\" src=\"https:\/\/cci.utk.edu\/jem\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/09\/Joy-Jenkins-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cci.utk.edu\/jem\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/09\/Joy-Jenkins-portrait.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cci.utk.edu\/jem\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/09\/Joy-Jenkins-portrait-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Jenkins, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, began researching this topic in 2017 while at the Reuters Institute.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring my time [at the Reuters Institute], my focus was on researching local news around Europe and trying to understand some of the challenges those outlets face \u2013 particularly newspapers \u2013 and some of the opportunities and how they responded to shifts brought about by digital news consumption,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cI did my first report in 2017 and went and visited these newsrooms to talk with the journalists and editors there just to get a sense of how they feel about the changes in their newsrooms, how they\u2019re responding to those and what they see as the biggest opportunities for them. We published\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/our-research\/digital-transition-local-news\">a report<\/a>\u00a0based on that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Around this time last year, she was curious about how things had changed for these news organizations, so she revisited them. She interviewed 20 managers and editors from eight local and regional newspapers in four countries: France, Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of [research] happening around local news right now, which is wonderful, but it\u2019s often centered on the U.S.,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cWe don\u2019t often get to see comparisons on how different countries are responding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During her work in 2017, changes in the industry were shifting ideas about how newspapers can make money online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of the shifts they\u2019ve seen revolved around putting more priority on online subscriptions and trying to get people to subscribe or pay for individual articles or engage in some other way so that [the newspapers] can start to build that base,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cI went in with a broader set of questions, but what ended up becoming most interesting was that \u201cpivot to paid.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This \u201cpivot to paid\u201d reflects the fact that legacy news organizations are \u201cincreasingly looking to subscription and membership or other forms of reader contribution to pay the bills,\u201d according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-files\/DNR_2019_FINAL.pdf\">2019 Digital News Report<\/a>\u00a0from the Reuters Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Her report offers insights about how audiences are searching for news pieces with higher-quality content and what that might look like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the takeaways I found really interesting was that, in addition to the realization about how large audiences are less valuable perhaps than loyal, dedicated readers, there was this sense that they don\u2019t want to produce a bunch of content designed just for attracting numbers, and that is something that is prevalent with news organizations around the world,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cThe interviewees said they really need to focus on what they call \u201chigh value content\u201d and really invest in investigative work, data journalism, solutions journalism, profiles, pieces on the history of communities and service pieces. Those are the ones that people might be willing to pay for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because Jenkins conducted the interviews for the report before March 2020, they did not capture the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. So, Jenkins reached out to her interviewees for follow-up interviews about the effects of COVID-19 on their publishing efforts and added this information to her report.<\/p>\n<p>Jenkins said she hopes her report helps news organizations understand how others are responding to the same challenges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy hope is that journalists \u2013 particularly those working in local, metro and regional news \u2013<b>\u00a0<\/b>can read this and take some ideas from what other outlets are doing,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cIn terms of editorial projects they\u2019re working on, how they\u2019re leveraging social media in more effective ways and how they are reorganizing their newsrooms to try and be more responsive to creating high-quality online news, it\u2019s helpful to see that there are strategies that are working and things that local journalists are optimistic about. There are still massive challenges, but being able to see a bit of hope in these approaches is reassuring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism\u00a0published Assistant Professor Joy Jenkins\u2019 digital news report titled \u201cPublish Less, but Publish Better: Pivoting to Paid in Local News\u201d on Sept. 24. Her research revealed that newspapers need to shift their focus to maintain lasting relationships with their consistent viewers rather than trying to reach more audiences and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20,8],"tags":[34,96,97],"class_list":["post-3010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-news","category-featured-story","category-news","tag-joy-jenkins","tag-local-news","tag-reuters-institute"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jenkins Explores Digital News Trends of Local, Regional Newspapers - School of Journalism &amp; Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cci.utk.edu\/jem\/2020\/10\/02\/jenkins-explores-digital-news-trends-of-local-regional-newspapers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jenkins Explores Digital News Trends of Local, Regional Newspapers - School of Journalism &amp; Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The\u00a0Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism\u00a0published Assistant Professor Joy Jenkins\u2019 digital news report titled \u201cPublish Less, but Publish Better: Pivoting to Paid in Local News\u201d on Sept. 24. 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