Former CNN anchor Nina dos Santos: "No longer can a news outlet’s name guarantee the audience will come and stay"

This article is adapted from Nina dos Santos' closing keynote speech at our flagship conference Newsrewired that took place yesterday.

I am a journalist through and through. I have spent more than a decade as a CNN anchor and worked for many of the other trusted news brands over my 20-plus years in the industry.

But given the talks heard at the Newsrewired conference, I confess I am both worried for the future and comforted that such clever people are still trying to get to grips with a question that has dogged our craft during my whole career: "How to make money from our work".

There was an impassioned debate on whether to embrace AI or not. To sell or to sue, that is indeed the question.

We were elucidated on changing viewer habits online: a trend going only in one direction as we know - largely away from the legacy media it seems and at a faster pace.

Search engine optimisation can make it really difficult for great content to gain traction no matter how distinctive it is. And redundant, endless lists of keywords crowd out perfectly relevant ads on reputable sites.

In the age of big data, we can spot these trends quicker than before and respond. But how to respond still seems unclear to me, though it does to some extent depend on your audience makeup and size.

Subscription models only appear to be successful if they generate habits. Offering customers the option of handing over their data to subsidise the content may work for some outlets, and turn off other audiences.

I would personally love to see a broader, better bundle of news products offered to me. Less Apple News and more like Spotify, which has been crucial to the success of podcasts.

Substack has offered this to the glee of many writers, but will they be able to maintain their direct contact with the reader forever? Who knows.

I detect a definite scepticism about AI, whether or not to trust the companies in the sector. And why would the sector trust tech now if it has been burned by the likes of Google, Facebook and others in the past?

So where now?

It seems obvious that our audience have moved at pace and we have to follow them, even if that means perhaps a more fragmented market, which is less lucrative than in the past.

Consider this statement made just six months ago: "Anyone who gets their news from legacy TV is living in an alternative reality".

Elon Musk was mocked for saying that… but six months later, having done just a couple of rambling podcasts with a couple of cult presenters, Trump trounced Kamala Harris to deliver a resounding electoral victory, clinching the House, Senate, Electoral College and the popular vote.

He did all of that by avoiding the traditional rigmarole of televised debates and interviews on big channels or newspapers altogether.

The message: if you want to speak to Joe Public, say no to Morning Joe and make time for Joe Rogan instead.

That speaks to two things: 1) the biggest and most engaged audiences by far are now online and 2) ignore them at your peril.

Access and affordability have never been more important than they are today.

A few years ago, my shows could have had a reach of many millions on any given day or no one: one could never be quite sure given the technology of the day. 

What we do know thanks to Ofcom is that things are looking dire for TV: fewer than half of 16-24 year olds now turn the TV on at all each week, whereas more than three quarters did back in 2018.

But these audiences are going somewhere. A fifth of them now downloads at least one podcast each week. Meaning audio is an expanding and cost-effective medium. Commercial radio, opened up by the advent of digital audio broadcasting, is also booming.

Evidence shows that listeners like familiar, trusted voices for company, and they like being able to contact shows and contribute to the debate.

Amid all of this big names are jumping into this new world order to start up their own ventures on Youtube, Spotify and even on X, betting that early adopters will adapt best. 

So yes the audience may be becoming fragmented but finding a meaningful connection with a loyal audience can make up some of the numbers. 

Lessons for legacy media

Paying consumers expect more content in different formats: from short videos to more considered printed pieces and social media posts that cover a wide range of topics but are also well-curated.

Initiatives like the John Schofield Trust, which I have been involved with for a decade, that aim to increase the diversity and socio-economic mix of newsrooms, are also key to helping news outlets gain the trust of a broader audience and expand their appeal. 

Encouraging people to tune in and pay for what the press produces is crucial to ensure the press remains free - perhaps not monetarily but free from bias and political interference - and that is crucial to our democracy.

Already members of an incoming Trump administration have begun to float the idea of prosecuting journalists who report on uncomfortable topics of public interest, and their sources.

You can bet the White House press conferences will probably look different come this time next year. Probably populated by a myriad of different start-up news companies and podcasters.

I have tried to embrace this new future, by launching a podcast focused specifically on how democracy will fare in this new technologically-charged era. 

Called "Control Alt Deceit" - in a nod to the command one might use to turn a computer on or off - we look at who is trying to control the narrative and which alternative facts they are using to deceive you.

And we have leaned into technology for this project, just as much as we have consulted the audience. In fact, we asked Chat GPT to name it.

So my main message is this: change is afoot and faster than before and there is not time to wait to jump aboard for the wild ride, in whatever form news outlets can. 

There are many models to choose from and yes it may be hard to convince the board to take a bet on one direction only to have to change tack five minutes later but with data so readily available it will soon be clear what works for now and what does not.

No longer can a news outlet’s name guarantee the audience will come and stay. We have to adapt and fast because to ensure a free press remains free from bias and political influence we all have a duty to ensure it is a commercially viable endeavour.

Nina dos Santos is a freelance journalist, contributing to newspapers like The Times and The Independent. She is the host of the Control Alt Deceit podcast and a senior fellow at the John Schofield Trust, mentoring early career journalists.

Nina has been a television anchor for Bloomberg, a presenter for Sky News and a weekend correspondent for NBC News. In 2012 she joined CNN to anchor her own, daily show and undertook award-winning investigations into Islamic terrorism, Russian and Chinese espionage and allegations of forgery and money laundering in the art world.

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