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The Star
23-04-2025
- Business
- The Star
Engaging Generation Z: Strategies for newsrooms to capture shorter attention spans
Photo: AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star. KUALA LUMPUR: Newsrooms need to recognise that the younger generation has a shorter attention span, with many showing a declining interest in news, says Co-founder of The Daily Australia, Sam Koslowski. Koslowski, during the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Asia 2025, said that acknowledging the problem is the first step to successfully engaging Generation Z news readership. 'We need to realise that in a world where truth is less certain than ever, we have a bigger responsibility to do better and to understand our processes a lot more,' he said during the 'Audience Engagement Strategies as Alternatives to Social Media Platform' plenary session at WAN-IFRA Digital Media Asia (DMA) 2025 here on Wednesday (April 23). The session was moderated by Star Media Group (SMG) chief content officer Datin Paduka Esther Ng. 'As social media platforms like Meta and X show growing disinterest in news, what are alternatives that can help media companies stay engaged with the audience, especially with the younger ones? 'This session delves into new trends and suggests platforms and ideas that can help you grow your audience,' she said in her introductory remarks. Koslowski said it was not on the reader, especially the young consumers, to trust news presented to them instantly. 'We have to prove that to them. And the way that we do that is really hard work, and it's often not instantly rewarding. 'We need to be thinking about long-term quality,' he said. During his presentation, Koslowski said young people have low levels of trust in media and consume information differently and use social media as their primary platform. His media company has pioneered social-first news delivery in Australia, and now has global aspirations, leveraging new and captivating ways of delivering newsletters. Laura Crimmons, the head of growth management and audience development at Ringier, said that the challenge in reaching a digital audience lies in the increasing number of digital channels, which is exacerbated by limited resources. She said that in Ringier, automation of digital content in the newsroom was introduced to improve reach and efficiency. 'We introduced automation step by step and with the newsletters, we showed the data how the automation can improve in terms of clicks and when we take out the boring parts, we have time for the fun and creative parts,' she said, when responding to a question on the challenge to introduce automation in the newsroom. This 2025 edition of DMA, the premier event for the news media industry in the Asia-Pacific region, is a two-day gathering in the Malaysian capital starting on Tuesday (April 22). Organised by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the event has been a pivotal platform for transformation in the news media industry since its inception in 2009. This year, it returns, bringing global media leaders to share innovations in digital revenue, AI, and newsroom technology.
The Star
23-04-2025
- The Star
News organisations in Asia Pacific embrace AI innovations
The Star's senior news editor Razak Ahmad at the 2025 Digital Media Asia Conference by WAN-IFRA at Pullman Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star KUALA LUMPUR: From creating customised reader personas to developing an AI-aided therapist for readers, news organisations across the Asia Pacific shared their journeys in adopting AI in newsrooms. Organised by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the AI Showcase: Best Case Studies from the WAN-IFRA AI Catalyst Programme featured three news organisations presenting their prototypes at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Asia 2025. The Star's senior news editor Razak Ahmad revealed that the news organisation is developing an AI-enhanced therapist based on 39 years of columns from the newspaper's weekly advice columnist, Dear Thelma. He explained that The Star possesses a rich dataset to train an AI that can authentically capture her voice and perspective. "Since April 1986, Thelma has guided readers through relationship troubles, career challenges, and life's many other dilemmas. "An AI-enhanced Thelma means we can respond to more reader submissions, potentially increasing reader engagement, especially among our younger, tech-savvy audience," he said. A guiding principle for the project is ensuring that any AI-generated content is clearly labeled and moderated by a qualified person before publication. Senior Tech Coordinator Kyle Kwok emphasized the importance of continuously fine-tuning the AI training model to ensure it accurately reflects Thelma's voice and perspective. "We will have to continuously feed the most recent Dear Thelma articles to the AI model so that it will be up to date," he said. Fellow editor Michelle Tam noted that time and tests would determine if the advice generated by the AI therapist can adequately help The Star's readers navigate the complexities of their personal lives. She stressed that the AI tools integrated with Dear Thelma would be under human supervision to maintain The Star's high level of credibility and reader trust. She invited readers to share their problems with Dear Thelma by emailing lifestyle@ "In addition to our wonderful human shoulder to cry on, you might even encounter a trained 'Ther-AI-phist' to lend you a helping hand in the future," she said. The session moderator, journalist and media innovator Fergus Bell, stated that the newsroom AI Catalyst is an 18-month programme to support 128 newsrooms in their AI adoption journey. "These experiments reveal what works, what doesn't, and what's next for newsrooms serious about AI," he said, adding that these projects span multilingual, multiplatform, and resource-diverse newsrooms. Taiwan's United Daily News Group data development general manager Anson Mok mentioned that their organisation is creating a prototype exploring Gen AI's potential to offer content recommendations based on readers' personas, including demographics, behaviours, and preferences. "We defined 20 personas and used AI to analyse which type of content fits the personas," he said. This prototype helps enhance audience segmentation, news value, content quality, and understanding and expanding the target audience. Sports editor at the Philippine Daily Inquirer Francis T.J. Ochoa presented their prototype called the Newsroom Elves, which aims to improve efficiency in the print newsroom. "The Editor's Desk Elf converts press releases into stories with headlines and summaries. It copy-reads articles to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation and edits for clarity and brevity," he said. He added that it would give the editorial team more time to focus on the narrative of news stories.
