What’s ahead in 2025: WAN-IFRA team weighs in

Today, we sometimes perceive business as an impenetrable web of loose and interwoven threads. Which one should you pull first, which one should you pull particularly tightly and which one should you not pull at all? And what does the finished fabric look like in the end? - Martin Fröhlich

As the largest international press organisation, WAN-IFRA represents 3,000 news publishing companies and technology entrepreneurs, and 60 member publisher associations comprising 18,000 publications in 120 countries.

Through daily engagement with our communities, and via our project work and events - we held over 50 events worldwide in 2024, drawing some 5,000 people from 1,675 companies - we know what is on the mind of media folk, be they C-level media executives, journalists, innovators, thought leaders or the drivers of change.

We asked our in-house experts and community & project leads to share their predictions for the year ahead, based on the experiences and insights gained from a game-changing 2024.

On AI and Innovation: Vincent Peyrègne, Chief Executive Officer

Not surprisingly, generative AI will continue offering incredible content creation and distribution opportunities. However, with content creation becoming cheaper, faster, easier to use, and increasingly accessible to a mass of individual content creators - which will flood the digital space - these opportunities will not be translated into a competitive advantage.

All they do is raise the average level and raise the public's expectations even higher.

Unless news rethinks its organisational systems, the weight of data in its decision-making processes, infrastructures, and the skills required.

'Without significant investment, at a time when it is increasingly difficult to access capital expenditure, news media will become even more dependent on intermediaries - which will further reduce its profitability.'

Broadly speaking, the challenges genAI presents are not very different from the ones posed by other AI technologies (i.e. transparency, bias, inaccuracy, and privacy issues).

I've explored the benefits and risks of AI in depth in a recent questionnaire, in which I also noted the profound challenges that can reshape or just destroy news as we know it, specifically:

• For legacy media, the shift towards an AI and data-driven news ecosystem entails a gigantic cultural shift that not all news companies can afford.
• An information disorder in content creation democratisation, Information overload, contested news media authority and the audience exode.

Users are already drowning in a sea of informational garbage, and this could be just the beginning. Masses of mediocre content will swamp journalism. The public is no stranger to the phenomenon.

This information disorder has serious consequences for democracy and social cohesion. It is also detrimental to the viability of fact-based journalism. When it comes to generative AI, the public echoes it might hurt news, but consciously or unconsciously, it distances itself from journalism.

How can we meet this challenge without radically rethinking our alliances within the sector, whether through financial consolidation or new forms of collaboration?

On sustainability: Olga Britto, Director Iberoamerica

News media has to continue adapting to an unprecedented wave of innovation, as confirmed by the Global News Media Innovation Report 2024-2025.

Among the fundamental points that this report highlights, is that the industry now needs to come together to review and adapt generative AI's impact on newsrooms around the world; to learn from the best study cases and strategies.

Staying on the sidelines doesn't seem like an option. At this point, the role that senior management must play in gaining buy-in for AI deployment within their news organisations is crucial.

Publishers appear to be doubling reader revenue, data and product development - ​​all positive signs of moving in the right direction, while advertising becomes more challenging.

The industry has common challenges - and the immense opportunity to innovate and offer added value to their audiences. We must look there to focus on the sustainability of the media business and quality journalism.

It may not always be possible to anticipate the pace of change, but our goal at WAN-IFRA is to provide the news media industry with a snapshot of viable innovation and guidance on how to focus on some of the hotspots that can help to navigate these turbulent times.

On Business Sentiment: Dean Roper, Director of Insights; Publications Editor-in-Chief

We will be publishing our annual flagship report, the World Press Trends Outlook, later this month. One of the findings from the publisher survey, which informs most of the report, stands out.

Despite continued uncertainty on numerous fronts - the business model, inflationary pressures, news avoidance, geopolitical crises, changing user behaviour, impact of AI, internal innovation/change management issues, just to name a few - the majority of publishers (61%) surveyed are optimistic about how their business will develop over the next 12 months. And even more so over the next three years, as 64% responded.

That level of optimism is indeed higher than last year.

That seems counterintuitive to the not-so-hushed narrative of a shrinking, consolidating, under-siege industry. Or, as one newspaper CEO recently told me: "We have one simple reason to be a bit optimistic - we have really done our homework over the last few years and are much smarter today."

Simply put, newspapers now know their subscribers and readers more intimately than ever before - what content they consume, the topics they are interested in, the formats and products they like, what levers convert casual readers into loyal readers…

This is largely due to the buy-in - across the entire organisation - of working with smart data, and embracing and experimenting with technologies like generative AI.

And a big part of being "smarter" today is figuring out what not to do or what to stop doing - not easy for any company, no matter the industry.

Indeed, the "homework" never stops. We will ask publishers again in March how optimistic they are going forward and share the results at our World News Media Congressin Krakow, from 4-6 May. Hope to see you there!

On digital revenue: Martin Fröhlich, Director: Digital Revenue Network

Today, we sometimes perceive business as an impenetrable web of loose and interwoven threads. Which one should you pull first, which one should you pull particularly tightly and which one should you not pull at all? And what does the finished fabric look like in the end?

2025 will be a decisive year in the search for the most important threads.

A lot is changing - and the number of topics and challenges is growing. The pendulum swung to AI, then to Young Audiences, from there to Local Media, on to Newsroom Transformation, Print Legacy and Subscription Strategy…
This is one of the reasons why WAN-IFRA is active in so many areas.

2025 will be a decisive year in the search for the most important threads - despite or perhaps because of the impact of AI. The stuff that revenue dreams are made of - because that's what the digital business is all about, in the end: Media have to earn money in order to be able to do their irreplaceable journalistic work.

On shared visions: Valérie Arnould, Deputy Director: Digital Revenue Network

I recently attended a major announcement about a newsroom reorganisation, delivered by its editor-in-chief. Two things struck me.

The first was that when he introduced several significant new AI tools being integrated into the newsroom's working environment, set to be deployed at a rapid pace in 2025, nobody really reacted with either fear or enthusiasm - just a bit of resignation, perhaps.

Secondly, the entire meeting was focused on processes. The editor was so absorbed in describing the organisational aspects - crucial for success - he simply forgot to share the vision, and get everyone on board, or every brain fully engaged, to tackle what really matters: large segments of the news media audience are struggling to find media that feels relevant and useful to their daily lives, and therefore worth paying for.

Can we make that our focus for 2025?

Let's use AI not just to handle routine tasks but also to free us up to explore, understand, and test new ways to deliver value to more audiences every day.

Let's support journalists who have navigated wave after wave of digital transformation over the years, adapting to all the challenges it has brought.

As inspiration, see Sarah Marshall's inverted trapezoid audience funneland encourage newsrooms to create their own versions, adapted to their specific contexts and goals.

A shared vision of where they're heading is exactly what newsrooms need right now.

On collaboration: Stephen Fozard, Project Director: Global Alliance For Media Innovation (GAMI)

The biggest challenge hitting our industry is the rise of generative AI, which also has an impact on the programmes and projects we are now creating and seeking

funding for. Most participants and partners within our programmes are now looking toward AI to find solutions.

GAMI drives collaboration first, always - and this year, my focus for GAMI will be piloting a new programme that aims to connect media companies to startups, and helps them to work together.

We are also aiming to launch a journalism fellowship programme that connects young talents to media companies.

On distribution: Lizanne Barber, Executive Director: Distripress

For DistriPressmembers, the topline turnovers are down year-on-year for many companies, and the major structural challenges remain, but confidence levels in 2024 are strongly up on 2023. Firstly, there is some hope that the general economic volatility will steady in 2025. Secondly, the more proactive operators are simply "getting on with it" and are executing practical and flexible strategies.

The growing "can do" attitude is seen in the language being used. The talk now is more about "optimising" and "adapting" rather than "managing decline."

The world of media is changing, but so are DistriPress members, many very successfully."

On publishing formats: Magdoom Mohamed, Director: World Printers Forum South Asia

I would particularly highlight video as a key prediction for 2025. With the increasing consumption of video content, especially on mobile devices, the year 2025 will witness two major developments - a significant surge in the number of users consuming video content and a notable increase in engagement time. In 2023, the average global time spent on video consumption was estimated to be 17-20 hours per week. This figure is expected to grow substantially in 2025.

However, most of this video content currently comes from influencers rather than traditional news sources. With modern AI tools now making it easier to create simple yet powerful videos on the go, news publishers have a valuable opportunity to enhance their video content creation capabilities and capitalise on this trend in 2025.

Focusing on video content would serve three key purposes - increase the availability of credible news stories in video format, drive higher audience engagement and create additional revenue opportunities for news publishers.

On Press Freedom: Andrew Heslop, Executive Director: Press Freedom

The start of 2025 in the US has potential to set the media freedom tone globally. How the incoming Administration conducts relations with the press may further accelerate the challenges facing democratic norms and established institutions of governance not only in the United States, but worldwide.

Will the 1st Amendment - the Constitution's press freedom gold standard and a beacon for free expression advocates everywhere - survive a transactional presidency that sees independent media as the enemy? And how might this influence foreign leaders, who still look to the US out of admiration or simple expediency, to conduct relations with the media back home?

With global impunity levels around the killing of journalists estimated at between 80% to 90%, the necessity to investigate and prosecute crimes against journalists remains as urgent as ever.

Lack of accountability leads to further killings, undermines the rule of law, and indicates that wider human rights are threatened.

Of the 137 journalists reported killed in Gaza, at least seven are believed to have been directly targeted by Israeli military action. The perpetuation of ongoing conflicts will undoubtedly shape safety and security concerns for journalists reporting from the wider Middle East, Ukraine, and the largely forgotten war devastating Sudan.

Reliable facts continue to lose ground to mis- and disinformation, creating a vacuum to be filled by those seeking to control the narrative to the detriment of transparency and accountability.

As 2025 sees the continued rollout of ever more sophisticated AI tools, the battle to distinguish real from artificial further risks devaluing the work of journalists and endangering the role of professional media - in both challenging environments, and across markets in which formerly solid democratic institutions are increasingly fragile.

Elections scheduled for 2025 in countries as disparate as Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Chile, the Philippines and Poland, will put all this to the test and scrutinise commitments to press freedom that could as easily be reversed as renewed.

On Editorial Strategy: Cherilyn Ireton, Executive Director, World Editors Forum

Ask World Editors Forum members about the most significant forces likely to shape their newsrooms in 2025, and the majority point to economics (again!).

But just weeks into the new year, the issue keeping them awake is the fragility of trust in fact-based journalism.

First, the uncomfortable economic reality: outside of a few successful global, national or niche news brands, there does not seem to be enough digital revenue - whether from ads or subscribers - to support the in-depth and independent journalism most editors aspire to produce.

So, many outlets will once again face tough choices about what their newsrooms do (and don't do) - and how they do it.

Technology will help. AI is already successfully supporting newsroom processes, according to exciting case studies showcased at our events and on our website.

However, philanthropic grants for newsroom projects may be harder to come by. Key funders - alert to the changing political mood - have switched focus and have, or will, step back from media partnerships.

That leads neatly to what is really disturbing editors: the hostility and distrust shown towards journalists, facts and truth. Going into a new Trump presidency, the social media space is going to get more threatening and swamped by misinformation. We are also likely to see further, deliberate disintermediation of independent mainstream media.

What does this mean for our community?

It means we are in for a brutal and defensive year - perhaps the toughest yet.

Together, we must make a stronger case for the good journalism that is produced daily. Urgently.

Lucinda Jordaan

[email protected]