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Most newsrooms still structure their work around beats, story types, or funnel stages. This approach helps manage production and measure performance; but they are built around organizational logic, not audience logic
🧭 Shifting perspective means asking a different question: not what story should we publish? but what job does this story help the user get done?
That change turns journalism into something people can use; and gives editorial, product, and business teams a shared way to discuss value beyond reach or clicks.
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When people engage with journalism, they are usually trying to accomplish something: to make a decision, understand an issue, connect with others, or simply take a moment’s pause. User needs describe these underlying motivations, offering a shared language for why audiences seek information and how they assess its value.
This perspective reframes journalism as a service. It connects newsroom effort to user outcomes such as understanding, confidence, and connection; factors that can strengthen relevance and loyalty over time by shifting focus from volume to usefulness.
Some critics worry that focusing on user needs risks turning journalists into entertainers, catering to audiences’ desire for distraction rather than information. In practice, the picture is more nuanced. Audience research suggests that disengagement or avoidance often reflect fatigue or disillusionment, not a lack of interest in news itself. User-needs frameworks help uncover the motivations behind these behaviours, showing that even when people seek relief or escape, many still value journalism that helps them understand, decide, and connect.
Recognizing these patterns does not mean lowering standards or chasing trends. It means designing journalism that meets people where they are (acknowledging their limits, their habits, and their need for meaning) and reminding them why information still matters.
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The most widely used framework for applying user needs in journalism is the BBC model, developed by Dmitry Shishkin while at the BBC World Service. It identifies eight distinct motivations that explain why people engage with news, grouped into four overarching functions*.* Each is linked to a core motivational drive, describing what people are trying to achieve when they interact with journalism.
Many newsrooms still prioritize user needs like Update me and Educate me, where information is abundant and increasingly commoditized. While this coverage remains essential, it often offers fewer opportunities for differentiation or lasting loyalty.
Stronger distinctiveness now tends to emerge from the layers associated with Feeling and Doing: journalism that connects emotionally, supports participation, and helps audiences see themselves and their communities reflected.
These categories are not fixed rules, but they can help align editorial priorities with audience purpose and support decisions that strengthen relevance and trust.
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This framework draws on media psychology’s uses and gratifications tradition and was later adapted to journalism by researchers such as Grzegorz Piechota.
Originally designed to examine how people use media to satisfy psychological and social needs, it has since been applied to explore the drivers that shape how audiences seek, interpret, and interact with news.
It identifies five broad dimensions that illustrate how different forms of motivation influence the way people find value in journalism.
Although developed separately, this framework complements the BBC model described earlier, as it helps explain the psychological and social factors behind how people engage with journalism.
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Building on the logic of user needs models, this framework proposes that attention and loyalty can also be fuelled by emotional intensity. Underlying motivations such as curiosity, belonging, or identity may surface through stronger emotional responses like outrage, fear, or validation.
These patterns show how the same psychological mechanisms that make journalism engaging can, under certain conditions, encourage forms of attention driven more by emotion than by understanding.
This is not about judging emotions, but about recognizing how they influence audience engagement. It helps identify when emotional energy contributes to understanding and community, and when it starts to replace them, offering a fuller picture of how audiences relate to journalism.
None of these frameworks are intended to simplify journalism or reduce it to fixed categories of behaviour or motivation. Rather, they serve as tools to better understand the range of factors that shape people’s connection to news: from curiosity and empathy to outrage and belonging. Used thoughtfully, they help newsrooms stay aware of the choices and balances involved in capturing attention, building trust, and creating value.
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🕶 Perspectives from CEE
The data shown here reflects aggregated responses from the 13 publishers in the Perspectives cohort about which option best describes their organization’s envisioned future based on the project sessions.
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It defines the value an organization creates for its users and what sets it apart from alternatives. It explains who it serves, what problem it solves, and why it matters.
In journalism, a UVP articulates what a newsroom uniquely exists to do: the kind of value it provides to audiences and how that value differs from other sources of information or experience. It is not a catalogue of everything the newsroom produces, but a concise statement that communicates purpose and ensures consistency across teams.
According to the *Membership Puzzle Project (MPP),* a strong UVP helps to:
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📢 CEE examples
The Membership Puzzle Project studied membership models across several regions, including CEE, and drew on cases like 444, an independent digital newsroom based in Hungary. Their structured internal communications plan (built on regular updates, internal newsletters, and cross-team working groups) became an example of how to align a newsroom around membership and strengthen a member-focused culture.
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A UVP is effective when it is visible in practice and recognized by others. It should convey, in simple terms, why a newsroom’s journalism is worth people’s time, trust, and support; not as a slogan, but as a lived experience. It rests on evidence, not aspiration, and sits at the intersection of:
A UVP does not need to be grand; only clear, specific, and consistently reflected in the work. When grounded in audience insight and delivered reliably, it builds both loyalty and differentiation.
You’ll know a UVP is effective when:
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Creating a UVP combines internal reflection with audience insight. It means identifying what the newsroom does best, how audiences experience that value, and where those strengths overlap.
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The statement should serve both internally, to align teams, and externally, to test whether the promise resonates with users. A UVP should evolve through iteration, using behavioural data and feedback to assess whether the newsroom consistently delivers on what it promises.
Across the industry, UVPs take many forms. The wording varies, but the function is constant: to express a clear, credible promise of value that both audiences and staff can recognize.
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