The Trump reckoning

Welcome to a post-election edition of The Rebooting. Four years ago, I wrote about “news in the post-Trump era.” That headline didn’t age well, although the points in it stand. This week, I revisit the topic again, and many of the challenges are actually quite similar.

Before we get to that, I want to tell you about some things we have going on in a very busy November, aka Events Season:

• Building efficiency in news operations. I’m having a conversation with Nota CEO Josh Brandau on Nov. 12 at noonET to dig into practical examples of how AI can be brought to bear to streamline their processes in order to devote resources to differentiated and impactful journalism. Sign up for this Online Forum. (In partnership with Nota)
• The next iteration of subscriptions. Subscriptions continue to be the biggest bright spot for publishers, based on research The Rebooting has done. I’m having a conversation on Nov. 18 at 1pmET with Zuora’s Jonathan Harris about the evolution of subscriptions approaches to become far more sophisticated and customized based on audience needs. Sign up for this Online Forum. (In partnership with Zuora)
• How Metro grew traffic with less content. More with less is a mantra of the moment. On Nov 21 at 5:30pm, I’m having a conversation at the Wordpress VIP Innovation Showcase in London with Sofia Delgado, audience director at Metro, about how the London tabloid has grown traffic by 50% while reducing article production by 25%. We have a few spots left. I’ll be in London all week, and I’m going to do an informal meetup if you want to join. Send me an email.
• ICYMI: I’m hitting more registration walls than ever as publishers scramble to build their stores of first-party data. In a recent Online Forum with BlueConic’s Patrick Crane and Actable’s Craig Schinn, we discussed alternative approaches like interactive quizzes and more. See the replay. (In partnership with BlueConic)

Today’s audiences expect relevant video content on every page of your site. EX.CO’s advanced contextual recommendation engine, powered by large language model (LLM) technology, makes the process effortless. It analyzes your webpages, suggests suitable videos, and matches them seamlessly across your site. The result? A tailored UX with more monetization opportunities and more relevant videos on every page. Grab EX.CO’s free one-pager to learn how you can start using AI today to match the right video to the right article.

After the return

The return of Donald Trump to the presidency is a remarkable comeback that marks a return to the disruptive years of his first term. For the already hard-hit news business, Trump is the ultimate complexifer. And his return comes at a time when the overall publishing business is in the midst of structural change that’s put unprecedented pressure on business models.

The last time around, the news media responded to Trump with branding; this time around, it's time to focus on the product itself.