The International News Media Association (INMA) will hold five end-of-year town halls over the next five weeks distilling, spotlighting, and unveiling key learnings from the association’s initiatives and projects in 2024.
The two-hour virtual events will be free to INMA members and the news industry at large:
Generative AI Town Hall, 13 November; Product & Tech Town Hall, 20 November; Subscriptions Town Hall, 4 December’ CMS Town Hall, 11 December; and Newsroom Transformation Town Hall, 16 December.
“These town halls reflect end-of-year report cards on the priority initiatives and projects by INMA and will bring together the year’s top takeaways and insights in a five-week package never before seen in the news industry,” said Earl J. Wilkinson, executive director and CEO of INMA. “We welcome INMA members and the news industry to participate in these town halls that we’re proud to make freely available.”
Registrants will gain access to the livestream town halls, the recordings, and the presentations.
INMA Town Halls at a glance
Generative AI Town Hall, 13 November
How generative AI is re-writing the operations and best practices of news media companies will be the focus of this town hall moderated by GenAI Initiative Lead Sonali Verma. In addition to what INMA has learned from the past year, hear how gen AI has been put in practice by the Financial Times, algorithmic distribution and growth strategies by Times Internet, AI developments to track in 2025 from New York Public Radio, and how INMA will attack the subject in the year ahead.
Product & Tech Town Hall, 20 November
What product and tech is telling publishers about organizations, product branding, user experience, and matching content with people at the right time is the focus of this town hall led by Product & Tech Initiative Lead Jodie Hopperton. In addition to what INMA has learned about the product & tech space and what we expect to unveil next year, the town hall will hear about nimble organizational structures at Mediahuis and Der Spiegel; premium content at The Hindu and Schibsted; personalization, brand, and UX at Condé Nast; and emerging lessons on product branding from recent California tours.
Subscriptions Town Hall, 4 December
Push past the myth of a subscriptions ceiling with the power of news brands, big news coverage, and personalization to pursue growth in this town hall led by Readers First Initiative Lead Greg Piechota with guests from Schibsted and Harvard Business School. The town hall will look at what INMA has learned about subscriptions in the past year, explore the five promises of personalization, prioritizing volume vs. revenue growth, opportunities for growth beyond fake subscription ceilings, publisher lessons on the subscriptions path, and what the year ahead in subscriptions is starting to look like.
CMS Town Hall, 11 December
Expanding on the CMS Vendor Selection Tool unveiled by INMA and the Google News Initiative last year, join us for a special town hall led by Jodie Hopperton, INMA Product & Tech Initiative Lead. Guests from Real Story Group and Google will join as we go deeper into CMS with an all-new landscape view of the CMS market, a deep dive into WordPress and plug-ins for news – plus updates to the popular CMS selector tool.
Newsroom Transformation Town Hall, 16 December
How change management muscle is essential now to digitally transform newsrooms is the focus of this town hall led by Newsroom Transformation Initiative Lead Amalie Nash. In this town hall, we will distill what INMA has learned about newsroom transformation in the past year, share lessons learned from publishers like Schibsted, Politiken, Mediahuis Noord, Hearst, and University of Minnesota, and hear how INMA will approach newsroom transformation in 2025.
