Also this year, the qiota team attended the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, now in its twentieth edition. This event represents one of the most valuable opportunities to pause and observe how the industry is evolving: business models under increasing pressure, platforms rewriting the rules of distribution, and an artificial intelligence that is beginning to have a concrete impact on both content production and access to information.
Within a packed programme, we chose to focus on the panels most relevant to the everyday challenges publishers face: audience relationships, membership models, and the increasingly central question of distribution. We selected three that, more than others, offer concrete and immediately actionable insights for anyone working in publishing today.
1. “Human-made, mission-driven: reinventing membership media in the age of AI-slop”
The first panel, dedicated to membership, challenged an approach that is still very common: starting from the monetisation model without having truly clarified one’s editorial identity. The experiences of Republik, Daily Maverick, and CORRECTIV all point in the opposite direction. In all three cases, the starting point was not “how do we monetise our audience,” but “what is our journalism for?”. This distinction, which may seem theoretical, has a very real impact on every subsequent decision: from the type of content produced to how the relationship with the audience is built.
Another key theme was the role of community: no longer just as an audience to convert, but as an active part of the editorial project. Whether through governance, collaborative investigations, or direct dialogue with the newsroom, the goal is to build a genuine, two-way relationship. CORRECTIV’s “CrowdNewsroom” exemplifies this approach — readers are directly involved in investigations. In one project on the safety of school routes, citizens contributed photos and reports that were then analysed alongside local news outlets.
In this context, the concept of “value” also shifts: no longer about volume or reach, but about impact. Even a story with a limited audience can generate meaningful, concrete effects. This is the metric these organisations are starting to prioritise.
The panel also touched on experimentation, a topic that rarely gets discussed openly in the sector. It became clear how easy it is to go wrong when chasing formats that don’t align with one’s editorial DNA. Republik, for example, shared the launch of its “Daily quick news” project — developed with significant investment but ultimately misaligned with both the publication’s identity and its readers’ expectations, who were more interested in in-depth analysis and context. A more gradual approach to experimentation, with room for community input, proved far more effective.
On AI, the position was clear: it can be a useful tool, but it is not what builds long-term value. The relationship with the audience and trust remain the decisive factors.
2. “Audience engagement is business sustainability: strategies for success”
The second panel focused on another key theme: engagement. Not as a peripheral metric, but as a genuine lever for sustainability. The starting point was straightforward: audiences are no longer guaranteed and can no longer be taken for granted. This is why the first challenge is not external, but internal. A newsroom must be able to clearly define what value it offers its audience and, above all, must be aligned on this internally. If the value proposition isn’t shared, building a solid relationship becomes very difficult.
Reaching younger audiences emerged as one of the most pressing challenges for publishers. It’s not simply a matter of adapting formats or language, but of shifting perspective entirely: being relevant means genuinely representing this audience in the topics covered, the perspectives offered, and the stories told.
One concrete example is SPILNEWS, a Mediahuis project: a newsroom designed for 18-to-25-year-olds, distributed exclusively on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. This isn’t just a channel strategy — it’s an editorial approach built around the needs and habits of this audience. The distinction is important: it’s not enough to create content “for young people.” The content must be something young people recognise themselves in. This directly affects the ability to generate engagement and, over time, conversion.
Another significant point concerned content distribution. Increasingly, the website is no longer the central touchpoint of the experience. Content lives on external platforms, and this requires a shift in mindset: it’s not just about driving traffic, but about building presence and relationships outside of owned channels. In this sense, partnerships with creators and other ecosystem players become part of the strategy.
Finally, on metrics: all speakers stressed the need to move beyond so-called “vanity metrics.” Traffic alone is less and less meaningful. More relevant indicators include time spent, return visits, genuine engagement, and, above all, the ability to translate that relationship into sustainable economic value over time.
3. “Managing the open social web for media companies”
The third panel brought back into focus an issue that many publishers have gradually lost sight of in recent years: distribution. The starting point was clear: journalism has no impact if it doesn’t reach its audience. And today, that step is increasingly outside the direct control of newsrooms.
Where print and broadcasting were once proprietary channels, distribution now flows through platforms, social networks, and — more and more — AI interfaces. The zero-click phenomenon is one of the clearest signs of this shift: users get answers directly within platforms, never reaching publishers’ websites. The result is a progressive loss of traffic, data, and monetisation opportunities.
Against this backdrop, the panel highlighted some alternative directions. The experiences of Bluesky and Mastodon, while different in approach, both represent attempts to move beyond the logic of closed platforms, towards more open and interoperable models. But beyond the technical dimension, the most interesting point is the return to the centrality of direct audience relationships. Newsletters, communities, and strong editorial identities are becoming fundamental again — not optional extras.
The discussion also broadened the perspective, showing how distribution is not just an industry issue, but a democratic one. When access to information is mediated by a handful of actors, the way public opinion is formed inevitably changes too. This is why the question of infrastructure — how open, resilient, and distributed it is — becomes increasingly important.
It also became clear that AI could accelerate these dynamics further. If social media has already reduced direct traffic, LLMs risk becoming the primary gateway to news. The real challenge, then, is not just adapting — but understanding what role publishers want to play in this new landscape, and how much control they are willing to cede.
Conclusions
Taken together, the three panels point in a fairly clear direction. The future of the industry will not be decided solely by the ability to produce content, but by the ability to build relationships, define a clear value proposition, and reclaim — at least in part — control over distribution. It is around these three elements — mission, engagement, and distribution — that the foundations of editorial sustainability are being redefined today.