Lisa MacLeod’s Post

I am so excited about our News in The Digital Age event on 3 September. Last year's was one of the best conferences I'd ever been to ( 😉 ), and many of our attendees said the same. Our speaker list is already phenomenal: Mirja Cartia d'Asero Styli C. Danny Spears Ezra Eeman among them - and we are going to dig deep into growth strategy and tactics with these media stars, as well as showcasing the real-life case studies and learnings of our own programme partners. We are already almost 2/3rds full and capacity is limited, so If you'd like to attend, please email programmes@ft.com ASAP, and we will be in touch. Looking forward to seeing you there. Google News Initiative FT Strategies Financial Times #NITDA24

Shout out to my colleagues and friends in #Africa - please share with your networks Susan Makore Jane Godia Monicah Waceke Ndungu Jane Muiruri Dorcas Muga-Odumbe Scott Peter Smith Jessica Levitt Anthony Molyneaux Melanie Walker Styli C. Jerusha Raath

Please join us for a chat at our stand today - and a copy of the report - and come to our talk tomorrow at International News Media Association (INMA) newsroom workshop. FT Strategies Lamberto Lambertini Liat Fainman-Adelman

Looking forward to meeting in London this week for the International News Media Association (INMA) Congress. I'll be co-presenting in the newsroom track on Friday about what newsrooms can do to draw in younger readers alongside Lamberto Lambertini and Liat Fainman-Adelman - who did the *actual work* on the Next Gen News report. 🙌 Please pop past our stand to discuss the findings and say hi - we will all be there from Wednesday to Friday this week. FT Strategies

We at FT Strategies are so happy to be partnering with smartocto and Erik Van Heeswijk Rutger Verhoeven on the User Needs Labs. We’ve been following the concept and of course Dmitry Shishkin s passion for this work in the space for some years, and this partnership really brings it to life for all our clients too. Among them Ringier AG titles - we are so happy to welcome you on board and look forward to the next few months. Joanna Levesque Aled John Maciej Bugala Rumyana Nikolova Daisy Donald Niall Crozier

BIG CLAP 👏 to my dear friend François Nel on his award as Lecturer of the Year. It is such a pleasure to work with you Francois and your passion and belief in journalism sustainability is a foundational force in our industry. You have built University of Central Lancashire Journalism Innovation and Leadership Course to be one of the best in the world and all us JIL mentors and alumni, the JIL community and the team at FT Strategies send you the very biggest of congratulations on this achievement. 🥂

A few words from me in Cape Town this morning in solidarity with the Daily Maverick which has shut down (for 24 hours only) to highlight the plight of #journalism in South Africa. As many of my colleagues and friends head off for #Perugia and the #IJIF24 International Journalism Festival this week, please keep this top of mind. FT Strategies have had the pleasure of working with The Maverick(s) on a number of occasions. Outstanding journalism from this incredible team over the past 15 years has helped shine a light on government graft and corruption. With one of the most robust and liberal constitutions in the world, 🇿🇦South Africa🇿🇦 has long been upheld by a really powerful and fearless fourth estate. However, the chips are down for local journalism. Says Branko Brkic, Styli C. and the team: "Local news has been destroyed by economic disruption and compromised newsrooms." "... We felt compelled to highlight the global crisis journalism faces and what that means for our democracy and our economy.  Newsrooms across the world and South Africa are retrenching staff and closing down." Please share this post to your networks and click to support below. Businesses: Click here: https://lnkd.in/eGAQ5BD2 Individuals: Click here: https://lnkd.in/eFUPe4Yt In a newsletter to supporters this morning, The Maverick team wrote: "The impact is devastating. Just look around. Our cities are failing in lockstep with the demise of local journalism, with no accountability measures interrogating a broken system. With that, our economy can’t grow, businesses struggle to create new jobs, and the tax base shrinks, creating a larger burden per person...." "... There are simply not enough journalists to counter the volume of corruption, mismanaged funds and ineptitude that we know is happening in municipalities and institutions throughout the country ... There is more than enough work to triple the number of journalists we currently have." "Advertising revenue, grant funding, and philanthropic support are drying up.  After five years of Maverick Insider, only 27,960 amazing human beings ... have chosen to support us and keep our work free for all to access. This is just a small percentage of the site’s visitors, averaging around 10 million per month.  Sadly, it’s not enough to do the required job in a country ravaged by corruption.  We need to do much more for South Africa, like creating a dedicated team of journalists to cover our broken education system and establishing teams of local journalists to cover our eight biggest cities with a daily report. So we had to do something drastic — something to show what it would feel like if journalism were silenced due to a failing market. Today, there will be no reporting.  There will be no investigations.  There will be no updates. There will be no accountability.  This crisis is bigger than us — it’s bigger than one newsroom and any story. That’s why we need to make such a bold statement."