Building trust, revenue, and engagement: Highlights from the 2024 NPA Summit Keynote
By Valerie Figueroa
Today’s news product teams are growing at a time of rapid technological change, when public trust in newsrooms has eroded. The theme of this year’s NPA Summit, Tech & Trust, underscored the critical need for product teams to help media organizations reestablish trust with communities. Without this, audiences will continue to seek other sources, leaving them vulnerable to disinformation and bad actors, while further diminishing newsrooms’ ability to gather and disseminate reliable information.
In her keynote at the NPA Summit, Agnes Stenbom, head of IN/LAB & Trust Initiatives at Schibsted in Sweden, shared how they identify drivers of media trust. She emphasized that building trust is not only crucial for media organizations, but also essential for democracy. Collective distrust reduces our ability to address global issues like climate change and public health crises.
With democracy in the spotlight as election season continues in countries around the world this month, we wanted to share some of Stenbom’s findings for product teams.
Stenbom emphasized how evolving technology, including the rise of generative AI, increases the need for reliable, trusted sources of information. Building audiences’ trust in the editorial process is a key differentiator for Schibsted.
To make the concept of trust actionable, Schibsted sought to identify concrete, measurable attributes of trustworthy media. The organization conducted a comprehensive study with more than 3,000 people, focusing on Sweden and Norway. The goal was to ensure that trust not only exists, but also drives two key behaviors: product usage and willingness to pay for content.
Schibsted’s study found 49 relevant attributes of media organizations. These include having an accountable editor, correcting mistakes, and maintaining independence from political or commercial influence. The study condenses this to 11 key drivers of media trust. Three factors were most influential.
Credibility of process: This includes attributes such as thorough research, accountable editors, adherence to journalistic principles, and transparency in admitting mistakes. It is also one of the top drivers of users’ willingness to pay for content.
Credibility of content: This includes attributes like fact-based reporting, well-formulated content with no errors, and clear sourcing. This is another key driver of willingness to pay.
Personal relevance: This includes attributes such as content being useful, providing deeper insights, and reflecting readers’ reality.
These factors build trust and drive desired behaviors such as product usage and willingness to pay. In contrast, attributes like fame and inspiration boost engagement, but have little effect on trust or monetization.
While aligning content with users’ worldviews can drive trust and revenue, Stenbom believes media should focus on delivering valuable, balanced information. “I want to be clear that even though we can see in our study that content aligning with your worldview is going to drive trust, it's going to drive a willingness to pay right now, we don’t think that this is an attractive thing to pursue,” she says. “The media has a different job to do.”
Putting trust-building measures into play
Schibsted is now implementing measures that include making its editorial process more transparent. For instance, editors can visually highlight when journalists are reporting on-site, using geolocation and photos to demonstrate their physical presence.
Stenbom shared another example from Lisa Horn, a reporter at Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest news outlet. In an investigative piece, Horn used cocaine detection napkins to investigate drug use in politicians’ offices. Horn documented and explained every step of the process, from testing to lab analysis, shedding light on the behind-the-scenes work of journalism.
Schibsted has introduced several initiatives to ensure audiences receive high-quality, relevant content. This includes tools such as Buddy Reader, an in-house AI tool to help journalists quickly improve their writing, and Curate, an AI-driven editorial curation system that delivers content tailored to users’ interests.
Stenbom recognized a need to develop standards for the use of these types of AI tools. This led her to co-found the Nordic AI Journalism Network. More than a dozen Swedish media companies collaborated on guidelines for publications’ AI use, which were adopted by all major media companies in Sweden.
New formats—like AI-generated rap
Schibsted is also exploring content versioning that empowers users to choose how they get the news—reading, listening to AI-generated voices, or watching video content. Flexible formats and modular content improve personal relevance and support diverse audience preferences. “We think it’s really important that users have a say in the format,” Stenbom says. “One size does not fit all.”
Stenbom conducted a 10-week program with youth from an underrepresented, crime-affected area of Stockholm, Sweden. IN/LAB’s News Changemaker Program explored challenges in current news formats and invited participants to develop solutions. Traditional news formats, like articles and videos, were unappealing to the program’s participants. Their challenge: “What if news was delivered as music, specifically rap?” Schibsted developed News as Music, a project to transform written articles into AI-generated rap songs.
The songs were featured on the front page of Aftonbladet and reached nearly half of Sweden's population. “We’ve told stories to each other as human beings through music forever,” Stenbom says. “It’s a very natural mode of communication for humankind.”
As news product teams explore new formats and delivery methods, Stenbom offers several questions to consider.
How might you give users a chance to understand your process through new product features?
How might you evolve your product to better highlight the credibility of your content?
How might you provide more user groups with relevant experiences by product improvements?
How might you invite missing perspectives into your innovation processes?