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Google Discover now largest traffic source at Reach | Guardian US editor interview
And staff at The Guardian and Observer are officially set to strike next month over plans to sell the Sunday paper to Tortoise Media
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Good morning and welcome to your Press Gazette Future of Media newsletter on Thursday 21 November, brought to you this week in association with Q5 - experts in organisational health.
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It's news... but not as we know it.
Press Gazette has spoken to Reach audience director Martin Little about how the UK's largest news publisher is tailoring content for Google Discover - the near-ubiquitous platform which delivers a news feed to smartphone users.
He said that softer content does well on Discover - first-person articles, sport, niche interest areas and lifestyle.
And headlines need to be written in a certain type of way to work well.
So whereas as a news headline traditionally tells readers the central facts of a story, Discover headlines tend to hint at some withheld information - thereby encouraging readers to click.
My own Discover feed suggests the platform incentivises publishers to publish frequent articles about certain niches - such as Martin Lewis, Strictly and Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul- even when there have been no substantive developments.
But the huge traffic Discover drives cannot be ignored and ad-driven publishers have to reach new audiences on different platforms if they are to survive.
Today we also have an interview with Guardian US editor Betsy Reed, who reveals how she set about rallying her team following Donald Trump's surprisingly emphatic win in the US presidential election.
The Guardian's opposition to Trump is a principled one based on its liberal values. But it has also been hugely successful commercially (so far) with around $4m of additional reader revenue expected to come in by the end of the year.
And finally, we have the latest on the dispute at The Guardian over the future of the Observer, which after simmering for several weeks is now reaching boiling point.
Guardian and Observer journalists are set to hold the first of two anticipated 48-hour strikes at the start of December in protest at the planned sale of the world's oldest Sunday newspaper to Tortoise Media.
Tortoise Media founder James Harding has meanwhile come out punching with a statement which asserts that, far from being the villains of the story, Tortoise has a plan to save the Observer from irrelevance and closure under its current owners.
My sense is that, barring a last-minute change of heart from Guardian editor Kath Viner and the rest of the leadership team, the Observer sale looks likely now to go ahead.
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On Press Gazette
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Google Discover has become Reach’s ‘biggest referrer of traffic’
“Overall, almost 50% of our titles are on year-on-year growth now,” Little said, “and that is partly because of the shifts in Google.”
Guardian US editor Betsy Reed: 'We want to offer readers joy and hope'
“I don't think we are perceived as a foreign entity at this point because we've put down real roots in America."
Guardian strike: Staff agree 48-hour walkout over Observer sale to Tortoise
Journalists have opted for 48 hours, rather than 24, to maximise disruption and the stoppage would be likely to severely disrupt print production.
Sponsored: Monetising digital audiences: A call for alignment across strategy, teams, and tech
Mather Senior Managing Director, Pete Doucette, explains how publishers can address digital revenue challenges