How the News Product Alliance will support news organizations to align technology, journalism, and business decisions around audience needs to build a healthier and sustainable information ecosystem.

The news industry is grappling with declining trust and disengagement, particularly among historically marginalized communities. At the News Product Alliance (NPA) we understand that for news organizations to survive, thrive, and rebuild trust, they must deliver quality, trustworthy journalism that creates value and represents the communities they serve —before it is too late.  

We need news leaders who can drive product development that centers audience needs and fills information voids while strategically aligning journalism, technology, and business goals through a lens of ethics, equity, and inclusion. Our vision is to empower the news industry with a new generation of diverse leaders – News Product Thinkers – who have the empathy and know-how to build resilient news organizations, deliver quantifiable business results, and rebuild trust by ensuring we truly serve our communities. 

In just three years, the NPA has built an engaged community of +3000 news product professionals with a supportive infrastructure that enhances knowledge sharing and talent retention. We offered career support through mentorship, resource development, and training programs, elevating the discipline of news product management in the process. 

Moving into 2024, we want to continue building a diverse talent pipeline for News Product. We will empower the individuals doing this work and their media organizations to ensure news product thinkers have both the expertise and structural support to lead audience-centered innovation and strategic decision-making. Together, we’ll transform news organizations into successful businesses and build a more sustainable industry. 

Three pillars will guide our work to build a diverse talent pipeline for News Product: 

1. Accessible training to level up News Product talent 

With a growing pool of professionals well-versed in product management frameworks, news organizations can build more diverse and innovative products and services that provide real value for their audiences while maximizing limited resources and reinforcing sustainable business solutions. This is especially important at the local level, where being strategic can significantly impact long-term sustainability. 

Our training efforts to build a diverse talent pool of news professionals have already yielded significant results: 

• We proudly launched a first-of-its-kind News Product Management Certification —in partnership with the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY J+— that includes technical training and provides frameworks to develop solid business strategies and measure performance. The curriculum also emphasizes the importance of partnering with editorial, engineering, designers, and other vital members of a modern newsroom team to achieve organizational goals. We have received hundreds of applications for the first cohort.

• We have hosted three annual Summits, 500-person global virtual events that provide an inclusive and accessible space for participants to learn more about the news product discipline. Our participants are a powerful and diverse cohort, as 62% of Summit attendees impact tech purchasing decisions at their organization, and half self-identify with a group historically marginalized in the media.

• In addition, we’ve hosted more than 25 community events on topics ranging from AI in the media landscape to Google Analytics 4 to how to get buy-in for your product vision. 

Our training efforts also underpin our mission to expand the diversity of News Product Thinkers in decision-making roles. Rebuilding trust in news requires the development of products and services in which audiences feel their needs are accurately represented and heard. We believe this is best — and most easily — achieved when a multitude of perspectives are included in the news product development process. 

We integrate this outlook into our training, coaching, and mentoring efforts by ensuring diverse representation among our instructors and participants, all while keeping our services accessible by offering free opportunities, scholarships, and tailored support. In our third year running the Summit, we have nearly doubled the number of attendees who self-identify as a member of an underrepresented group since 2021, and half of the participants from our Mentor Network Program identified as part of an underrepresented group. 

We are committed to ensuring emerging news product thinkers from historically marginalized backgrounds have support to pursue ideas that foster trust and provide relevant information for underserved audiences. 

2. Product capacity building to transform News organizations 

Developing a diverse and skilled workforce is essential for the ecosystem's success, but it is not enough. We consistently hear from members of the NPA community that the lack of institutional support and understanding of product management as a discipline creates a barrier to effectively implementing transformation. 

In small local news organizations, news product management is often not given priority, and News Product Thinkers are unable to reach their potential due to a lack of resources. Although many large news organizations have integrated product management into their technology and business operations, there is still confusion about the level of influence product managers should have on editorial decisions, and there are few executive leadership positions available for those who don't follow a traditional editorial career path.

We need to support news organizations so they can effectively address cultural shifts to incorporate product management and retain talented individuals. That is why, on top of our training and mentorship programs, we also directly assist news organizations in building their product capacities.

Our capacity-building initiatives produce a better understanding of the changes required to become a product-centric organization. An example is our Product Sprint, in partnership with the American Press Institute, which supported local news organizations, like The Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Bangor Daily News, in their journey to develop revenue-generating products aligned with organizational strategies. 

The path to sustainability requires news organizations to establish product management functions and become ready to face constant transformation. The NPA can support organizations in developing product operational capacity so they can find business solutions that provide value for their audiences while serving their journalistic mission. This will improve news organizations’ ability to enhance new and existing products quickly and efficiently, guided by a deep understanding and connection with their audience and strategic business sense. 

3. Community and connection for news product thinkers to thrive  

Pushing for change is hard, and the work never ends. In addition to managing new initiatives within their organizations, News Product Thinkers must constantly adapt to changing markets, technological developments, business objectives, and audience needs. To thrive in this profession, they need a network of support that can offer inspiration, opportunity, and connection. The NPA was founded by a group of news product professionals who knew that this community — and the exchange of knowledge, career advice, and encouragement — was essential to helping them stay on this career path and succeed in uplifting the news industry.

Our global community of 3,000 practitioners offers members from various organizations access to the largest network of professional news product experts from media and tech companies. Over one-third of last year's Summit participants told us that the NPA influenced a job or title change they secured in the past year. Our members credit us with helping them achieve transformation in their newsrooms. In fact, 42% of Mentor Network participants shared that their team or organization experienced a change in workflow or structure that helped them work towards becoming more product-centered thanks to the program, including a participant who developed a workflow to address editorial pain points with generative AI. 

Through our mentorship and community-building programs, we’ve connected more than 250 members with coaches to support them as they incorporated professional product practices, developed their careers, and pushed for organizational transformation. Some of our success stories include using product techniques to make fact-checking more attractive to audiences, re-thinking how to better report metrics to editorial colleagues, or even establishing the first official product role for an organization. 

Our culture of collaboration helps product practitioners continuously develop innovative solutions, as we hold space for NPA members to work together in developing and adapting tools that respond to the shifting dynamics of content discovery, audience engagement, and publisher-audience relationships. 

Furthermore, the connections made in our community strengthen the news product talent pipeline. Our Slack Job Board helps local news hiring managers find the right product talent for pushing change in their organizations, and the support of our community helps members avoid burnout and isolation, preventing an exodus of talented and tech-savvy professionals from the industry. 

Why work with the NPA  

What makes NPA a key player in this industry transformation effort is our deep expertise, our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our collaborative mindset. 

• Expertise: The NPA hosts the most comprehensive network of product experts and professionals worldwide, enhancing the impact of our programs by providing access to an unparalleled level of expertise with diverse perspectives. This is a community of decision-makers and change agents who leverage product skills to transform the industry at scale. 

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion: Expanding the diversity of news product thinkers in decision-making roles is a core part of our mission, and it is transversal to everything we do. Our Mentor Network, our Summit, and our training programs are a testament to that, and our goal is to take it further. We understand that part of our work is to ensure that emerging news product thinkers from historically marginalized backgrounds have support within their organizations to pursue ideas that foster trust and provide relevant information for underserved audiences. And this ethos does not stop with our programming — we actively advocate for these communities in our partnerships, working to increase accessibility throughout the entire ecosystem. 

• Collaboration: At NPA, we recognize that solving the news industry's complex challenges requires a multifaceted, multi-stakeholder approach. Our strong track record of successful partnerships with funders, universities, journalism support organizations, and media organizations, combined with our expansive community and specialized expertise, makes us an ideal partner for large-scale initiatives to increase the capacity and capabilities of news product management in news organizations of all kinds. 

The News Product Alliance is committed to strengthening the industry's product capabilities, fostering equity and inclusivity, and championing collaboration. As we move forward into 2024, we invite all those who share our vision of a sustainable journalism industry to join us. Together, we will cultivate a diverse talent pipeline that can help rebuild trust and foster a healthier news ecosystem. 

If you’d like to partner or support our mission, reach out to me at feli@newsproduct.org