3 lessons from journalists across the globe

Last week, I attended the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy. It’s the biggest annual media event in Europe and brings together smart speakers and attendees from around the world.

I heard from so many people who shared their ideas and solutions to the biggest problems in local journalism. The good news is that people are working on the same problems across the globe, and they’re finding success.

Here are some of their insights:

Say yes to AI 

Tristan Loper, head of journalism programs for the Lenfest Institute for Journalism told me there are “a thousand ways to be able to say yes to AI without having to worry about whether it’s going to replace journalists.”

And Lenfest’s AI Collaborative and Fellowship Program offers news organizations the opportunity and support to explore those approaches. Our Lenfest-funded fellow, E.J.Fox, started late last year and is working on an AI-based print workflow tool and reporter-facing tools to aggregate hyperlocal information.

Kati Erwert, who is also part of the Lenfest cohort and leads The Seattle Times’ product and marketing departments and oversees the organization’s public service initiatives, shared how The Times is using AI to drive revenue in three key ways: 

• 💲A prospecting agent to help build a pipeline of business. 
• ℹ️ An info hub for the sales team. 
• 📊 Reporting and data analysis for advertisers. 

Know your value

The Onion’s value proposition is simple: Be funny. 

That’s according to Executive Editor Jordan LaFlure, who said at the festival that he hopes The Onion also is cathartic at a time when people have many emotions about news and the world.

LaFlure said The Onion isn’t focused on page views and is instead working to grow membership through an audience-first approach. 

“Newsrooms really need to lean into their unique value, particularly in 2026 when news consumers have more options than ever for where to get their information,” added Abbey Gingras, News Revenue Hub’s senior director of consulting services. 

She noted value propositions are useful because they explain “what it is that you do and why you’re the ones to do it or why you’re the only ones doing it in your community.”

Listen to your audience

Jens Pettersson, who is head of editorial development at NTM and is based in Sweden, told me it’s important for news organizations to listen to their audiences and set their strategies accordingly.

He touted NTM’s three-pillar audience engagement strategy: 

• 👥 Focus on the target 30-39 age group. 
• 📰 Focus on topics that audiences are already engaging with (NTM has a list of seven prioritized topics based on data from 85,000 articles). 
• ℹ️ Use a user-needs model. They prioritize content meant to “update me, educate me, guide me, and make me feel something.”  

Janis Kitzhofer, senior manager for editorial insights and development for Axel Springer in Germany, said taking a targeted approach such as this, rather than trying to do everything, may work better for many news organizations, noting journalism should “give orientation and telling with a little bit of content what is important and why it is important, how it affects you and the society around you?”

It’s about radical collaboration

Beyond these insights, I was encouraged by how every meeting se had ended: With mutual promises and plans to help each other.

One of those helpers is Katherine Reynolds Lewis, who founded the Institute for Independent Journalists, which supports independent journalists of color and other marginalized groups.

The best solution to the biggest problems local journalism faces is radical collaboration: helping each other, connecting each other, sharing tools, sharing contacts and sharing information.

It’s never been more clear that we’re all in this together.