News Product Alliance

Empowering news product professionals and emerging news product talent to create ethical and sustainable
digital media
businesses.

Empowering news product professionals and emerging news product talent to create ethical and sustainable digital media businesses.

A program created by the News Product Alliance with support of the

A program created by the News Product Alliance with support of the

150 emerging product thinkers will be selected and matched with one of 50 experienced news product professionals.

NPA’s goal is to increase the number and diversity of product professionals in the journalism industry. The Mentor Network is a key component to help us achieve this goal. We aim to provide community support to emerging product leaders. 


The application period was from September 13th and September 26th for our community members. The NPA Mentor Network program runs from October 2022 until April 2023.

Mentees can look forward to gaining knowledge and increasing their understanding of news product, receiving personalized guidance, and becoming part of a global network of support and practice pushing towards a more equitable media landscape.

Mentees will work on a challenge related to:

  • Change management

  • Product philosophy

  • Team leadership

  • Professional development

  • Landing one’s first product role

  • Product & business

  • User research & audience

  • Product design

  • Diversity & inclusion

  • Other product-related themes.

Each mentee will have three sessions of one hour each with a mentor to:

Once the program begins, mentees and mentors will be able to meet virtually at mutually convenient times. 

Once the program begins, mentees and mentors will be able to meet virtually at mutually convenient times. 

The News Product Alliance Mentor Network program focuses on emerging product thinkers. Applications closed on September 26th, 2022 at 9pm ET for everyone who met the following requirements:

· You are a member of our NPA Slack community.

· You identify as a news product thinker or think you might be a news product thinker. We believe anyone working at the intersection of editorial, audience, technology, and business can be a product thinker, and you do not need a product job title to be a product thinker. In addition to product managers, our community includes editors, executives, data scientists, academics, and more.

· You work in journalism, a space that directly supports journalism, you’re a student or you’re looking to make a career move into the news industry. 

· You agree to follow our code of conduct and help us build a safe and inclusive environment. 

· You want to receive mentorship from experienced mentors from the product management and journalism industries.

· You want to work on a product-related challenge.

· You are available to dedicate 3 sequential meetings with your mentor over 6 months.

· You are willing to work on your challenge and a plan during and in between the mentorship sessions. The time you dedicate to work on your challenge will be up to you. 

  • Mentors have vast experience and knowledge in the product field and in providing guidance to journalists worldwide.

  • The 50 mentors are from North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. They work for tech companies, newsrooms, and journalism support organizations such as The New York Times, Netflix, Vox, CNN, and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), among others.

  • Mentors will receive training from Upasna Gautam, Product Manager at CNN and Mentor Coach, resources created with support from Emma Carew Grovum and the NPA team before the mentorship process begins in order to learn best practices to guide mentees through their news product journey. Combined, Mentors will provide up to 500 mentorship hours over six months.

Meet our stellar group of mentors!

  • The News Product Alliance team has created a customized match-making model to pair mentors and mentees. The match-making process will work by assessing:

    • Mentees’ proposed challenges and mentors’ interests

    • Mentees’ professional goals and mentors’ career paths, affinities and expectations

    • Time zones and preferred languages.

  • The match-making process will also include a human review by the NPA team to make sure both mentor and mentee needs are aligned.

  • During the mentee selection process, other criteria will also be assessed, such as:

    • Why do mentees want to participate in the program?

    • Why are they interested in developing a career in news product?

    • What do they expect to accomplish by participating?

Have any questions?

Please reach out to sam@newsproduct.org if you have any questions about the program, and we will help you through the application process.

About the

News Product Alliance is a community of support and practice for news product thinkers. Our mission is to elevate the discipline of news product management and expand the diversity of news product thinkers in decision-making roles. We believe news product thinkers — those with the ability to strategically align business, audience and technology goals while integrating journalism ethics — are key to building sustainable and ethical news organizations. Read more here.

In partnership with

Thanks to the generous support and collaboration of the Google News Initiative, we are championing product thinking and pathways in journalism by building product capacity in the media industry, offering support to change-makers from diverse backgrounds, and elevating the discipline of news product thinking.

The Google News initiative was created to ratify its commitment to collaborate with media outlets to elevate and strengthen quality journalism on their platforms, develop business models to support quality journalism, and empower news organizations to take advantage of new technologies.

with the support of the