Q&A on industry opportunities and setbacks with young news product leaders

Hi again! 👋

For this week’s Product Notes issue, we’re hearing from students and early career professionals working in news product roles. As we’ve covered in prior issues and last year’s The State of Product Management in Journalism report from NPA, we’ve seen news product roles continually grow and formalize over the industry, albeit still working through challenges of role recognition and leadership support. 

In the midst of a growing industry that is rapidly evolving with changes to newsrooms’ technological and financial landscapes, what’s it like to be someone who is just starting to build a career in this work?Below, I spoke with four young news product leaders for rose-bud-thorn-style interviews about their budding careers:

• Vannessa Wong, Ops Project Manager at What If Media, previous intern at The Philadelphia Inquirer & The Boston Globe
• Kaiden Chandler, Incoming product fellow at the Texas Tribune
• Lena Han, product manager at The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Genevieve Smith, senior at The University of Missouri and assistant editor at The Columbia Missourian

First, let’s start with what’s going well. What are you enjoying about working in news product? What are your best experiences so far? 

Vannessa: “One of my favorite parts about working in the news industry right now is how much room there is to grow. It's not just about, ‘How can we keep people informed?’ But it's also about: ‘How we can help our community thrive?’ As much as we are trying to keep them informed about serious topics like politics, we shouldn’t overlook other things worth reporting like the food or the culture scene. News product is an exciting industry that has a lot of opportunities to grow a user base and connect with its users by building products that target different goals readers might have, which makes the work really cool.”

Kaiden: “With the Connecticut Examiner, I had the opportunity to work on audience research as soon as I started, and it was a really valuable skill, not only on the analysis side and the data side, but just being able to talk directly with readers. After we set up the forum and collected their emails, I emailed about 30 readers, and having one-on-one conversations with them really helped me understand not only the product side of journalism, but also the impact that a reporter’s journalism has on the community. Really connecting that real-world impact to the work I was doing was something that has stuck with me.”

Lena: “I've been able to do a lot of [experimentation] with our mobile app. At the Inquirer, we see the mobile app as a place where we can be a little more experimental, since it's an audience of mostly subscribers. Being able to just work on new features for the app, with the power to reach readers with the information they want in new ways, is really fun.”

On the other hand, what’s difficult about getting into and working in news product so far? What do you think is holding you or the industry back?

Genevieve: “[News product] is not something that is fully fleshed out in the college curriculum yet. You really have to know what product is and then be like, ‘Oh, maybe this is a class that I should take.’ I just think what a missed opportunity that could have been if I'd known what news product was three years earlier, two years earlier… I wish there was more lower-level product knowledge. I think product is seen as a more advanced career type thing.”

Lena: “The news product space is inherently very forward-looking and very optimistic, and it's born out of this mindset that we make decisions differently or think differently in an industry that's shrinking. But I don't think we're good at translating that optimism or making it contagious to the average journalist in the newsroom. I think the average journalist in the newsroom is pretty pessimistic about change, and on the product side, we think of change, pivoting, or iterating as just part of the process. The news industry is pretty scarred from pivoting, and there's kind of a lack of trust in how it's adapting. We just should do a better job of bringing the newsroom along as we're thinking about [what’s next].”

Vannessa: “When you hear product, a lot of students tend to think of big tech, finance or industries like that. Niches like retail or healthcare or news aren’t one that come top of mind. But its in these niches where you find that there are so many underserved areas and underrepresented people that you can contribute your ideas to. I feel at home in news product, because it’s a perfect blend of impact, community, and my interests and I think other students would be excited if they looked at news product with an interdisciplinary perspective.”Finally, what opportunities are you seeing in news product? Where do you think the industry is going to evolve as your career grows?

Genevieve: “I'm sure this is a pretty common, generic answer: I think there's gonna be a lot of change around AI, but I think that will go beyond just product … I think [AI] shows truly where it is more important for us to put physical resources, not necessarily what should be taken over by AI, but if it can be taken over by AI, then maybe it is not the most important thing we should be focusing on anyway.”

Lena: “The line between creator and journalist is getting a lot more blurred. That's something younger people are probably experiencing more acutely, because I didn't grow up idolizing traditional journalism the way people 20 years older than me did - the way that I consume writing or reporting is to find people or organizations whose work resonates with me. When you're an independent creator, you have no choice but to constantly adapt to what your audience is looking for. And we’ve found that creators have done a really good job of building trust with their audiences, which newsrooms continue to struggle with. It’s still pretty early days for collaboration and learning between the creator ecosystem and the news industry, but I think it's something that will continue to grow.”

Kaiden: “I'm really inspired by all of the newsrooms that are doing work in community building. For example, The Verge is experimenting more with its commenting ecosystem. WIRED has been doing a lot of subscriber AMAs, which they relaunched their subscription with... I'm also really excited by the work that the Bristol Cable is doing in England. They're also in the early stages of building a local news fediverse ecosystem where people can talk across their communities. I really am excited by the possibility of not just that A-to-B connection where you're sending stories to the audience and the audience reads them, but also the cycle where the audience is giving story tips back, asking questions, and driving the journalism forward themselves.”

I wrapped up interviews by asking everyone what kept them wanting to grow in news product industry despite challenges of constant change and limited but emerging early-to-mid career job opportunities. 

The overwhelming response? The ability to directly contribute to making an impact on the communities a newspaper serves, and the possibility of seeing the work – the products and people in it – continue to evolve and grow. As Vannessa said, “I don't know that many early career news product folks, but I hope there'll be more of us in the future.”