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Ben Whitelaw

Supporting sustainable media businesses at FT Strategies, founder of Everything in Moderation

Ben Whitelaw is a freelance journalist and content strategist based in London, UK. He specializes in media strategy consulting, focusing on areas such as audience development, reader revenue, and digital transformation. With over ten years of experience in editorial and newsroom transformation, he has worked with major UK publishers and has also provided consulting services to news media organizations across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

Whitelaw has held various roles throughout his career, including serving as the Engagement Lead for the Engaged Journalism Accelerator at the European Journalism Centre. His expertise lies in online news production and community engagement, making him a notable figure in the field of journalism and media strategy.12

For more details about his work and background, you can visit his personal website or LinkedIn profile.

Highlights

Jul 25 · linkedin

What a whirlwind week its been in San Francisco. #TrustCon is the largest conference of trust and safety professionals in the world and is so insightful for understanding the work being done behind-the-scenes to tackle online harms that affect millions of people.

There are too many people to mention but a few highlights:

  1. Twelve months after coming up with the idea at #TrustCon, Mike Masnick and I were allowed back to record the first live edition of Ctrl-Alt-Speech — our podcast about the latest online speech news and analysis — with the brilliant Dona B. And Alice Goguen Hunsberger and an amazing crowd. The episode drops on Friday.

  2. Almost six months since the Digital Services Act came into force, I (thirstily) oversaw a lively conversation about online risk and the EU’s regulatory efforts with Alice, Louis-Victor de Franssu, Patricia Cartes Andrés and Gerard de Graaf at the EU office in San Francisco.

  3. I got to meet new faces and connect with old ones at a co-hosted dinner with Mark Nolan, Mike Pappas and the team at Modulate.

Lots to do in the meantime but already looking forward to next year

Jun 11 · linkedin

How can news producers close the gap between what young news consumers want and what they are offering?

That was the focus of the Next Gen News report that we launched back in February in conjunction with Northwestern University Medill School and GNI.

But there are other, adjacent questions that have cropped up as I’ve presented the findings to the FIPP - Connecting Global Media Congress and Ringier AG International over the past week. These are important to think through as publishers of all sizes figure out how to — as Gert Ysebaert calls it — “restore that connection” with young consumers.

Here are just a few that I’ve faced including my best attempt at an answer:

→ 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩? Our research participants typically didn't use traditional brands for news for a number of reasons that we explore. However, they mentioned listening to podcasts from the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and gravitated towards well-known brands like ARISE News and The Times Of India during major news events to ‘sensemake’. Some young consumers talked about how notifications from CNN and Financial Times were "a very big part of my day" even if they didn’t open the app because they have to pay.

→ 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘉𝘪𝘨 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘛𝘪𝘬𝘛𝘰𝘬 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴?  Young consumers, unsurprisingly, are continually scanning social media and other aggregrated sources for news. Generally speaking, these platforms facilitated "news [that] comes to you" — to coin a Jack Kelly phrase — so were perceived favourably as a result. There was little mention of the concerns about ‘Big Tech’ that traditional media organisations harbour. In fact, these platforms allowed the kind of convenient, affinity-driven and transparent consumption that they valued.

→ 𝘛𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴? The research didn’t seek to understand the propensity of young consumers to pay for news sources (although we’d love to look into this so let us know if you’d be keen to collaborate). However, we concluded that, for most media companies, experimenting with new reader revenue models before attempting to close the gap will lead to mixed results.

The report has dozens of opportunities to build closer relationships and more frequent touchpoints with young news consumers. Which have you found most interesting?

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Ben Whitelaw
Ben Whitelaw, photo 1
Ben Whitelaw, photo 2
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Experience

Manager at FT Strategies (January 2024 - Present)
Senior Consultant at FT Strategies (August 2022 - January 2024), Founder and Editor at Everything in Moderation (August 2018 - Present), Freelance Journalist and Content Strategist (March 2020 - Augus at Guardian Group (June 2011 - December 2011)

Education

MA Newspaper Journalism, Journalism at City University (2010 - 2011), BA English Literature, Literature, Language at University of Birmingham (2007 - 2010)

Location

London Area, United Kingdom