1 00:00:02,860 --> 00:00:14,900 Just. Welcome to Feature of Journalism, a podcast from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. 2 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:18,710 I'm Fisica Cherubini, head of Leadership Development at the Institute. 3 00:00:22,740 --> 00:00:26,940 Use a special series of Apple Podcasts and its dedicated regional news report. 4 00:00:26,940 --> 00:00:33,930 2022. Over seven episodes with diving into the most comprehensive piece of research on news consumption around the world. 5 00:00:34,850 --> 00:00:39,740 In this episode of the series, we're joined by lead author of the report, Nick Newman. 6 00:00:40,490 --> 00:00:47,390 Nick is co-author of Chapter that looks at which individual journalist news audiences pay most attention to. 7 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:51,739 We look at whether these journalists represent traditional mainstream media or 8 00:00:51,740 --> 00:00:55,760 newer digital born brands and whether they are known for reportage or opinion, 9 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,750 for example. Nick, welcome to the podcast set again. 10 00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:08,240 So this is the first time the digital news report has asked people to name which individual journalist they follow most closely. 11 00:01:08,540 --> 00:01:16,220 So it's a complicated subject, but what it is about today's media environment and made you ask this question in the first place. 12 00:01:17,690 --> 00:01:24,049 Well, obviously, digital and social media has opened up the opportunity for anybody with a phone 13 00:01:24,050 --> 00:01:28,670 and an Internet connexion to create content and distribute that content for free, 14 00:01:29,390 --> 00:01:33,320 effectively to do some of the roles that journalism and journalists did. 15 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:39,110 So we've seen the rise of citizen journalism, blogging now podcasting. 16 00:01:39,110 --> 00:01:43,400 So basically, you know, you don't need to be attached to a traditional media company to be a journalist anymore. 17 00:01:43,850 --> 00:01:53,040 And then in the last few years, we've seen the development of a series of platforms that allow people to make businesses out of it. 18 00:01:53,100 --> 00:01:55,549 So the most obvious one is probably Substack, 19 00:01:55,550 --> 00:02:02,210 which is a platform that allows any individual journalist really easily to charge money for a newsletter or a podcast. 20 00:02:03,140 --> 00:02:06,980 And this is kind of really game changing because it gives the structure incentives 21 00:02:06,980 --> 00:02:11,840 to allow individuals to become media companies and to make a living out of it. 22 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:16,339 So there's a lot of hype about this change, about the creator economy. 23 00:02:16,340 --> 00:02:19,370 And we wanted to see how that's working out in in journalism. 24 00:02:19,370 --> 00:02:23,030 When people think about journalists, do they think of these creators? 25 00:02:23,050 --> 00:02:26,660 They think about people working in the mainstream media. 26 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,260 What countries did you look at and why? 27 00:02:33,490 --> 00:02:38,049 So we just looked at six countries because we wanted to go deep rather than wide. 28 00:02:38,050 --> 00:02:45,970 And we our starting point was the U.S. because that's where the sort of creator economy is really sort of going fastest. 29 00:02:46,870 --> 00:02:57,210 But then we also looked at Finland, Germany and the U.K., which we know from other work, has strong brands. 30 00:02:57,220 --> 00:03:02,530 And so that we expected to see some stronger brands and and a lower role for individual journalists. 31 00:03:02,530 --> 00:03:09,160 And then we looked at France and Brazil, countries where we know individual journalists have traditionally played a bigger role. 32 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:19,660 A large part of this chapter is based on a survey line asking respondents to write the names of five journals they pay attention to. 33 00:03:20,410 --> 00:03:26,650 I have a big caveat around the data should be that less than half of all respondents name a single journalist. 34 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:33,970 Did you see that as an indicator that many people just don't follow the news closely, don't don't have many names in mind? 35 00:03:34,510 --> 00:03:39,669 I mean, partly that but I think it's also a function of surveys. 36 00:03:39,670 --> 00:03:43,149 People to surveys don't like to spend a lot of time on questions like this. 37 00:03:43,150 --> 00:03:51,729 So we probably shouldn't read too much into it. But but we do know that that people struggle, too, to name journalists beyond maybe, you know, 38 00:03:51,730 --> 00:03:56,620 television newsroom readers who've been in their lives, you know, every evening for for many years. 39 00:03:57,340 --> 00:04:01,660 People pay attention to stories, but not necessarily to to the journalists. 40 00:04:02,770 --> 00:04:08,740 And, you know, it was interesting to see that confirmed to some extent, at least in that statistic. 41 00:04:09,970 --> 00:04:19,180 Well, we look a bit of specific names in a moment, but I'm just curious whether any names are you surprised to see any known, 42 00:04:19,390 --> 00:04:23,860 particularly non-traditional journalists that kept coming up the use of about. 43 00:04:25,790 --> 00:04:31,760 Generally, no. I mean, people people named broadcasters and also print journalists. 44 00:04:32,210 --> 00:04:40,250 And they tended to name those who had either been around for a while or had been controversial in some way. 45 00:04:40,970 --> 00:04:45,860 And and in almost all countries, we found that the vast majority of them traditional journalists. 46 00:04:46,310 --> 00:04:50,540 But in the US, we did find a much, much bigger proportion. 47 00:04:51,020 --> 00:04:55,429 Something like 15%, many of whom I had not heard of at all. 48 00:04:55,430 --> 00:04:59,120 So effectively are really long tail people you might not think about as journalists. 49 00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:01,250 So we tagged them. 50 00:05:02,660 --> 00:05:13,960 We coded them alternative and independent, and they included YouTubers, include podcasters, they include comedians, authors and academics. 51 00:05:13,980 --> 00:05:22,190 There's another sort of interesting category social media influencers. This was more in the U.S. and in other countries, but we saw that, too. 52 00:05:22,190 --> 00:05:32,540 In Brazil, for example, there's a, you know, a name that came up regularly called Zoe Martinez, who is a young vlogger. 53 00:05:32,690 --> 00:05:38,870 And she combines political and social discussions with sort of her personal vlogging adventures, if you like. 54 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:46,639 In Germany, there's a young YouTuber and podcaster called Tyler Young who has the sort of 55 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,379 persona of of a naive young man and asks his guests very basic questions around. 56 00:05:51,380 --> 00:06:01,190 The news came up a lot in the US, Joe Rogan, obviously, and actually in other countries as well. 57 00:06:01,190 --> 00:06:05,749 He who is obviously huge on Spotify, but many people wouldn't think about it as a journalist. 58 00:06:05,750 --> 00:06:08,989 And then finally, I think there's a category of politicians as well. 59 00:06:08,990 --> 00:06:17,900 So we found a lot of people who we ask about, journalists you pay attention to, and they gave us politicians because of course, the line is blurring. 60 00:06:17,930 --> 00:06:21,560 You have many politicians who now anchor radio and television programmes. 61 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:29,210 Nigel Farage in the UK is an it is a prime time anchor on on a channel called TV News. 62 00:06:29,660 --> 00:06:30,350 Eric Zimmer, 63 00:06:30,500 --> 00:06:40,220 one of the you one of the candidates in the French presidential elections this year was an anchor with would see news or commentator would see news. 64 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:48,350 And so I think this sort of line between journalists and other types of professions is sort of blurring all the time. 65 00:06:49,310 --> 00:06:58,520 I want to ask you more about names, but first, did you find that people follow individual journalists more than news brands? 66 00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:02,090 And what's what explains the findings? 67 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:10,519 Right. So so right at the beginning, we asked everyone in the survey, do they identify more with a news brand or with an individual journalist? 68 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:15,650 So this is obviously not not the way people think about it's a rather crude way of looking at it. 69 00:07:16,550 --> 00:07:22,880 But but it really did show some really quite surprising country differences here. 70 00:07:22,910 --> 00:07:33,860 So, for example, 90%, roughly 90% in Finland, Denmark, some of these Nordic countries say they mainly identify with the brand. 71 00:07:35,060 --> 00:07:39,020 So only a tiny percentage said they they identified with the journalists. 72 00:07:39,020 --> 00:07:40,400 That's also true in the UK. 73 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:48,740 And we know from other research we do, these are traditionally very strong, have very, very strong brands and very strong connexions with individuals. 74 00:07:49,340 --> 00:08:00,260 Whereas in France, Brazil and to some extent in the US we have a much higher proportion who say that they identify with the individual journalist. 75 00:08:00,260 --> 00:08:08,540 It kind of helps to explain why Substack is doing better in the U.S. than is in the U.K. but also in France and Brazil, 76 00:08:08,540 --> 00:08:12,770 over 50% said they mainly identified with individual journalists. 77 00:08:13,730 --> 00:08:19,100 So I think this is really kind of interesting because it suggests that maybe, you know, 78 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:23,780 if you're thinking about monetisation, sustainability, maybe there are different ways to go here. 79 00:08:23,780 --> 00:08:29,000 Maybe for, you know, some of the strong brand countries, you know, you're really pushing on the brand. 80 00:08:29,390 --> 00:08:32,570 But maybe if there's more identification with journalists, 81 00:08:32,570 --> 00:08:38,420 you want to make more of your individual journalists and you want to maybe tie that into a brand subscription. 82 00:08:38,420 --> 00:08:47,030 So you want to develop some stars who can really sort of bring that connexion, if that seems to be what the data is telling us. 83 00:08:48,690 --> 00:08:53,520 Let's get some more specific. Who were the most closely followed journalist? 84 00:08:54,210 --> 00:08:58,500 That survey responds. Notified if we start for the UK with example, for example. 85 00:09:00,030 --> 00:09:06,450 Well, the top the top ten list had actually a couple of political journalists at the top. 86 00:09:06,450 --> 00:09:12,180 So Laura Kuenssberg is the BBC political correspondent and Robert Peston, ITV's political correspondent. 87 00:09:12,190 --> 00:09:18,450 And that's I guess because they have been on screen constantly and on social 88 00:09:18,450 --> 00:09:22,889 media constantly for four years talking about Brexit and talking about COVID. 89 00:09:22,890 --> 00:09:27,570 So, you know, every night in people's living rooms, every night on people's social media feeds. 90 00:09:28,620 --> 00:09:33,330 You also had a correspondent from a newspaper paper career from The Mirror, 91 00:09:33,510 --> 00:09:42,350 who has broken a lot of the exclusive stories on party gate, for example, the scandal involving Boris Johnson in the UK. 92 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:45,450 And I think, you know, this is quite encouraging. 93 00:09:45,450 --> 00:09:53,790 It shows that that the people recognise news journalists who break stories, not just, you know, opinion TV journalists, I should say. 94 00:09:53,790 --> 00:09:56,939 We also have Piers Morgan who who who is in the top ten list, 95 00:09:56,940 --> 00:10:02,849 who is well known for his more opinionated views and television shows in the US and Australia. 96 00:10:02,850 --> 00:10:05,610 And the UK has just launched a new show on TV. 97 00:10:07,170 --> 00:10:16,290 But interestingly, you know, also opinion columnists from The Guardian, which is kind of free in terms is not behind a paywall. 98 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:26,910 Three of those make the top ten list, including. Which is a sort of real testament to that left leaning publication and the value of opinion. 99 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:31,800 So you've got traditional, impartial based news on the one hand and then opinion as well. 100 00:10:33,030 --> 00:10:40,920 If you look at the US, for example, was the list broadly comparable to the type of journalist in the UK? 101 00:10:41,250 --> 00:10:48,149 No, I mean completely, completely different. I mean that the top ten list is basically all styles of cable TV. 102 00:10:48,150 --> 00:10:51,780 So either Fox, MSNBC, CNN, I think this one from ABC in the. 103 00:10:53,160 --> 00:11:01,580 And so that led by Tucker Carlson, you know, a fairly notorious presenter on an anchor on Fox. 104 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,690 Much of the content of this content is deliberately partisan. 105 00:11:08,220 --> 00:11:16,970 So very much. In contrast, the UK, where the vast majority of the top ten lists have a duty to present impartial news in the US. 106 00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:23,160 It's, it's very, very different. And I think that's kind of really interesting because it's showing the extent to which 107 00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:28,530 people are exposed to much more partisan opinions in the U.S. and the power of television. 108 00:11:28,890 --> 00:11:33,810 Whereas the UK less was much more split between print and and broadcast. 109 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:40,379 Yeah. And then I think the other really interesting thing is with diversity, 110 00:11:40,380 --> 00:11:48,870 we looked at gender balance of in different countries and broadly across all of the countries we looked at about 70% of those mentioned women. 111 00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:56,760 Also, they tended to be white and lower representing representation of ethnic minorities than the national population. 112 00:11:57,960 --> 00:12:06,540 But what you have is broadcast media, particularly in Europe, tended to be much closer to sort of 5050 gender balance. 113 00:12:06,540 --> 00:12:15,000 So there's been a lot of work on diversity within public service media, for example, and that was reflected in our data was about 50, 50%. 114 00:12:15,450 --> 00:12:23,460 But top name print reporters and columnist in places like the UK and U.S. and Germany tend to be overwhelmingly male. 115 00:12:23,490 --> 00:12:29,790 So so, you know, the gender balance seems to be distributed very differently depending on the media type. 116 00:12:30,570 --> 00:12:35,700 Was there any other pattern that you were able to find in other countries do you look at? 117 00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:43,139 I think one of the interesting things is the is the mix of print and television. 118 00:12:43,140 --> 00:12:51,150 So television dominates it. It's not necessarily that they are only paying attention to these journalists in broadcast because 119 00:12:51,150 --> 00:12:57,810 many of these television personalities have also developed social media presences as well. 120 00:12:58,380 --> 00:13:06,180 But but in in in, you know, television kind of dominates but less so in the UK where you've got these strong brands, 121 00:13:06,180 --> 00:13:08,970 less so in Finland, where you've got these strong print brands. 122 00:13:09,870 --> 00:13:17,520 The print journalist seems to have developed much stronger presence and a much stronger connexion. 123 00:13:18,330 --> 00:13:24,690 Again, I think it speaks to some of the trends that we were talking about in terms of monetisation and the 124 00:13:24,690 --> 00:13:32,100 ability of some of the Northern European brands in particular to monetise that connexion with the brands. 125 00:13:33,290 --> 00:13:41,730 You touched it before, but do you think news organisations find it beneficial or detrimental overall to their brands, 126 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:48,780 having prominent journalists within their ranks who can potentially reach millions of followers by directly? 127 00:13:50,540 --> 00:13:56,210 I think it's a bit of a double edged sword. You know, I think clearly now top. 128 00:13:57,190 --> 00:14:05,770 Journalists, star journalists play a key role in the performance and reputation of brands. 129 00:14:07,060 --> 00:14:12,610 And we're certainly seeing a move to star journalists. 130 00:14:12,610 --> 00:14:17,470 And the price of some of the top talent in terms of wages is going up significantly. 131 00:14:19,420 --> 00:14:27,310 So, for example, Joe Rogan, who we mentioned earlier, is earning huge sums to present his Spotify series. 132 00:14:27,670 --> 00:14:30,940 But you're also seeing stars being poached. 133 00:14:32,860 --> 00:14:36,849 So stars from BBC, for example, a number of them have gone to global radio. 134 00:14:36,850 --> 00:14:41,260 And in the UK you've seen the New York Times hiring a lot of top digital talent 135 00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:45,820 and then some of that top digital talent being sold again because the power of 136 00:14:46,180 --> 00:14:51,790 journalists who can work across different platforms is and host podcasts and 137 00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:58,570 newsletters and sort of bring in different audiences is incredibly important. 138 00:14:59,770 --> 00:15:06,190 So yeah, I think it's it's about the need to be distinctive on the one hand and having key talents part of that. 139 00:15:06,190 --> 00:15:11,510 And I think it's also something to do with the changing nature of media as well. 140 00:15:11,530 --> 00:15:17,170 Social media, podcasts, newsletters are much more vehicles for personalities. 141 00:15:18,130 --> 00:15:24,310 And so it's partly, you know, media companies know that they have to embrace those, 142 00:15:24,790 --> 00:15:28,750 those new channels, and that requires building up some more of those personalities. 143 00:15:29,620 --> 00:15:38,500 The double edged sword bit is, you know, it can be detrimental if that person becomes the brand and it can take away from from the overall, 144 00:15:38,830 --> 00:15:43,309 they can just leave and take their followers with them. Indeed. 145 00:15:43,310 --> 00:15:47,960 A fascinating by complex topic. Nick, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. 146 00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:53,500 Thanks. Our guest today was Nick Newman, lead author of the Digital News Report. 147 00:15:54,430 --> 00:15:59,140 Thank you all for listening to this episode of Digital News Report 2022 Podcast Series. 148 00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:03,190 You can catch up on other episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 149 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:09,500 If you want to read the full report in full, you can find it online and Digital News Reporter August 20, 22. 150 00:16:10,450 --> 00:16:12,639 And if you don't want to miss any news from the Institute, 151 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:17,860 subscribe to our weekly newsletter by clicking the link on our Twitter bio or on our home page. 152 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:24,670 This was featured of Journalism, a podcast by the Reuters Institute. I'm very excited to be and will be back soon.