Latest news with #DaveAyres
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘I can't cope with it any more': newsrooms scramble to retain audiences amid the big switch-off
When Deborah Turness, the head of BBC News, informed her staff recently that she was shaking up how they worked as part of a drive to combat 'the growing trend of news avoidance', she had in mind the likes of Dave Ayres, a handyman from Leeds. 'I used to have the news on the TV every morning for an hour or so as I got the children ready for school and completed my household tasks,' he said. 'Now it has literally been switched off and unplugged. I can't cope with it any more. It's just too much and there's nothing I can do about it.' Though he dips into his favourite news apps occasionally in the evening, he now strictly limits his news consumption. He's not alone. The Guardian has been contacted by a series of one-time news junkies who are now seeking to restrict their news intake after suffering from disturbed sleep or a downturn in their mood. A related concern is affecting the sleep of Caroline Waterston, the Daily Mirror's editor-in-chief. 'The biggest challenge right now that's keeping me awake is the under-35 audience,' she said this week, adding that if news companies can figure out how to reach them, they could also offer a big opportunity. Across newsrooms around the world, strategies are being launched to reach news avoiders, a cohort of refusniks behind a long-term decline in news engagement. The proportion of people who say they selectively avoid the news to some degree increased three percentage points last year to 39%, according to a survey across 17 countries by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Since 2017, it has increased by 10 percentage points. Over the last decade, the number of people getting any news online, whether through a news website or on social media, fell across every age group. In fact, the news avoiders break down into three groups. The first is a growing group of former news consumers who are dialling back, the second is a group who have never engaged with news in the first place, while the third group worrying media executives is young people, who appear to have lost trust in established news brands. The problem has been accelerated by changes to social media algorithms and search engines that mean fewer people are finding their way to news sites. 'The perception is definitely that it's getting worse,' said Benjamin Toff, the director of the Minnesota Journalism Center and the co-author of Avoiding the News. 'Part of that perception is based on the digital analytics data that many of these organisations are looking at. 'On the audience side, there is a degree of fatigue and exhaustion. A lot of people just feel, for their own mental health, they want to curtail the amount of news they're paying attention to. Meanwhile, younger people who are using Instagram and TikTok, where the ability to include links to content outside of those platforms is a major challenge, are probably contributing to the decrease in [news site] traffic.' The response in newsrooms has been varied, but there are a few clear trends. To deal with the boom in content and declining free time, curation is king. Newsletters with a few handpicked stories, podcasts delving into a single subject and a reduction in story counts have already emerged as early winners from the news avoider war. Personalisation is the next frontier, with some newsrooms already using newsletters personalised using AI. 'If the personalisation algorithm takes into account personal interest and what's trending now in a relevant way, you can increase retention by double-digit numbers,' said Danny Lein, the founder of the Twipe tech company, which pioneered personalised newsletters at the Times. The firm has since rolled it out across seven international newsrooms. 'Finding that good mix is really key. If it's only based on personal interest, you get echo chambers.' Turness believes personalisation is part of the answer at the BBC. The corporation has a lot of personal data that could help it tailor products, but it also has strict rules on the use of AI and has not yet been clear on its plans. There are also dangers. 'We tend to find that people aren't so keen,' said Craig T Robertson from the Reuters Institute. 'If you're personalising a news feed or news homepage, there's a sense that they're missing out on other things. It's not like music or movies.' Then there's the problem of negativity and a sense of powerlessness – another theme that emerged among news avoiders contacted by the Guardian. 'We need to feel uplifted, encouraged and hopeful, not oppressed and afraid,' said one. After discovering that a third of those ditching their subscriptions complained of news fatigue, executives at Spain's started looking at a new product that concentrated on the best news of the month, or stories with a constructive angle. Dagens Nyheter in Sweden is another outlet consciously including more positive pieces even on difficult topics. The 'constructive journalism' movement, which began in Denmark and encourages more stories on progress and problem solving, is gaining ground. Oliver Duff, the editor of the i Paper, said this week that it was often seen as a 'dirty word in newsrooms', but said it needed to be taken seriously because 'our audience disagrees'. As for winning over Gen Z, many are concluding that overcoming their different habits and lack of trust requires a radical reimagining of what newsrooms do. In Scandinavia, publishers such as Schibsted are spending more time explaining their editorial decisions. Duff also said there was a need to 'pull back the curtain' on the editorial process. 'You're explaining exactly why this author or this creator has got expertise on this story, or why Katie spoke to 18 sources in Whitehall to tell this story that's never been told,' he said. Likewise, Reach, which owns the Daily Mirror, is planning to use new studios to reach a younger audience with video – and some of their journalists are being encouraged to be more like influencers. Waterston said a journalist at a prominent court case was encouraged to talk about 'what it felt like for them sitting in the court. We should lean into that.'
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘To enjoy, not destroy': vandalism escalates at Five Hawks
Five Hawks Elementary School students were among the luckiest in the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District. A few steps behind their school building lay a sprawling outdoor learning center, complete with picnic tables and a gazebo. Over the years the wilderness wonderland – which is open to the community as well – has played host to an array fun and educational activities, including the annual recreation of the Oregon Trail for Five Hawks fifth-graders. Local Scout troops, many containing Five Hawks alumni, have done projects to improve the center – constructing a fire pit and wood storage, a table and steps – and give back to the place that houses so many memories for so many students. Last fall, the luck started to run out for the Five Hawks community. The outdoor learning center has always been a magnet for mischief, according to Five Hawks staff. 'It's escalated in the past few years,' says Dave Ayres, a fifth-grade teacher at the school. Every now and then it would be someone doodling in pencil or pen on the wood that constructs the gazebo. Someone especially brazen might even carve a benign message into the structure. 'It was usually something a custodian could sand off,' recalls Tim Bell, the principal at Five Hawks. Those were glory days compared to the situation now. Anyone taking a stroll through the outdoor learning center can see stones, which are used as seats in the amphitheater, that have been removed from the ground and rolled down the hill. Looking down, visitors can see the absence of wood fencing – placed years ago after the school received a grant in order to stop an erosion problem – once used to line the pathway. That treasured rust-colored gazebo has gotten the worst of it, though; many of the wood boards kicked out, rendering it so unsafe that teachers legally cannot bring their classes there for activities anymore. Visitors brave enough to set into the gazebo can look off the ledge and see cases of beer and cartons of cigarettes – possibly the vandals' detritus. The orange wood in the gazebo is covered with black and powder blue spray-painted messages and drawings, some of which are too vulgar to be reproduced here. 'It's so disheartening,' says Bell. 'It really is because the kids who are running in this neighborhood, they went to Five Hawks,' adds gym teacher Deb Sunderman. Seven years ago, Five Hawks faced a rash of less-intense incidents. The school responded by asking people in the community to report any strange behavior in the heavily wooded area. While police are very responsive, Bell says, the location makes the area hard to patrol. The awareness worked and the vandalism receded. But now it's back. Students and staff have offered ideas to quell the crimes – everything from cameras to Sunderman's suggestion of hanging signs that simply read 'This is for you to enjoy, not destroy.' What if the vandals steal the warnings? 'Laminating paper is a lot cheaper than repairing this,' Bell says. The staff at Five Hawks is clueless as to why the damage is ramping up now. A fourth-grade class at the school has already volunteered to go door-to-door and drop reminders, asking residents to call 911 if they see or hear anything suspicious in those woods. Much of the damage has been reported to the authorities but no one has been caught. The damaged picnic tables – which were 'ripped apart,' Sunderman says – have been cleaned up. Ayres is still planning to bring his students out to the center in early June for the Oregon Trail simulation, though he admits he might have to steer clear of the gazebo and its graphic graffiti. Bell couldn't put a dollar amount on the cost to repair all the damage, with Sunderman adding that it's more an issue of time and effort than of finances. 'If a volunteer would come forward, it would be great,' Bell says as he stands in the gazebo. 'Otherwise, we're going to spend some district or city time putting this back together.' While he's frustrated and somewhat hesitant, the school will rebuild. 'It's not going to stop us,' he says. 'We'll try everything we can.'
