I recently moderated a conference session where the Future Newsrooms Study 2026 by FT Strategies and WAN-IFRA was presented. Reading the report is indeed a wake-up call for many editorial leaders. This is not because it tells us newsrooms are under pressure. We already know that. It’s not because it says AI, video, audience engagement, and trust are important. We know that too.

The real challenge is more uncomfortable: Many newsrooms understand the direction of travel, but their daily operating models still point in another direction.

We talk about being audience-first, but most workflows remain destination-first. We say engagement matters, but reporters spend only a small share of their time building relationships with audiences after publication. We invest in technology, but often fail to invest equally in the people and skills required to use it well. We speak about strategy, but too often allow daily coverage decisions to be driven by habit, instinct, and the immediate news agenda.

For newsroom leaders, this means the task is no longer to write a better strategy document. The task is to redesign the conditions under which journalism is commissioned, made, presented, followed up, and learned from.

With this in mind, here are five things newsroom leaders need to do now.

1. Turn strategy into daily editorial behaviour

The report identifies a clear strategy gap: Many newsrooms have strategic priorities, but they are not consistently reflected in everyday editorial decisions. That should worry every editor-in-chief.

A strategy that does not influence commissioning is not a strategy. It is internal communication.

Here at the local media conglomerate NTM, we internally try to run newsroom transformation under this mantra: “We need to create a change in daily work. An editor and a reporter need to change the way they do stuff, otherwise no strategy or PowerPoint presentation will ever matter.”

Reading this study makes me realise we need to emphasise this even harder.

Newsroom leaders need to make strategy visible in the daily rhythm of the newsroom. Every significant story idea should be tested against a few simple questions:

• Is this relevant for our target group, and will it create unique value?
• What user need does it serve?
• Is it in line with our external ambition, and how will this support our audience or business goals?

This does not mean killing editorial instinct. It means sharpening it. The best newsrooms will not be the ones chasing every platform, format, or trend. They will be the ones that make clearer choices — and repeat those choices consistently.

The leadership implication: Editors must become stronger at saying no to stop low-impact work. Hold on to the decided line when commissioning stories.

2. Move from audience reach to audience relationships

The report shows that audience engagement has become one of the most important newsroom goals. However, there is still a gap between ambition and workflow.

Too much newsroom energy is still spent on publishing. Too little is spent on what happens before and after publication: listening, involving, explaining, responding, and building trust. This is a leadership issue.

If we want audiences to feel journalism is valuable, we need to invite them to be closer to the process. That can mean creating reader questions shaping explainers, community-driven investigations, transparent “how we reported this” boxes, live Q&As, local forums, or beat reporters who become trusted guides in specific subject areas.

Trust is no longer built only through institutional authority. It is increasingly built through visible expertise, transparency, usefulness, and human connection. For legacy newsrooms, this is a cultural shift. We have been trained to think the article is the end product. Increasingly, the article is only one part of the relationship.

The leadership implication: Editors must create time and expectations for audience work — not treat it as an optional extra when the story is already published.

3. Redesign workflows around user needs, not channels

One of the most important findings in the study is that most newsrooms still develop stories for a primary channel first and then adapt them elsewhere. Only a minority start with a defined audience need or audience group. That is a fundamental mismatch.

If the ambition is audience-first journalism, the workflow cannot start with “Is this a Web story, a print story, a video, or a newsletter item?” It has to start with the audience problem:

• Do people need to understand something?
• Do they need help making a decision?
• Do they need emotional connection?
• Do they need to feel represented or heard?
• Or, do they just need a fast update?

Only after these considerations should we decide the format. This matters even more in an AI-shaped media environment. Generic updates will become easier to produce and easier to copy. Distinctive journalism will come from original reporting, sharper framing, useful explanations, visual storytelling, community knowledge, and subject expertise.

The leadership implication: Newsroom leaders need to change the commissioning conversation. Format should follow purpose, not the other way around.

4. Treat AI as a capability question, not a technology project

The report is clear: The biggest barriers to AI adoption are not mainly technical. They are skills gaps, cultural resistance, and unclear use cases. That means newsroom leaders should stop asking only which AI tools they should we buy or build.

The better questions are:

• What journalistic problems do we need AI to help us solve?
• What work could we do that we cannot do today?
• Which repetitive tasks should disappear from reporters’ desks?
• How do we protect editorial judgment while increasing capability?
• What training do people need to feel confident rather than threatened?

If AI is measured only in time saved, newsrooms may simply produce the same journalism faster, with fewer people. That is not transformation. That is acceleration.

The higher-value opportunity is different: using AI to strengthen reporting, surface patterns, monitor public information, support investigations, make archives usable, improve personalisation, and free journalists to do more original work.

The leadership implication: AI must be owned editorially, not just technically. Journalists need to be involved in tool choices, workflow design, ethical boundaries, and training.

5. Build the skills system your future newsroom requires.

Perhaps the most practical leadership challenge in the report is the skills gap. Newsrooms know they need new capabilities, but too many still rely on informal learning, individual enthusiasm, or occasional workshops. That is not enough.

The future newsroom needs a more deliberate skills architecture. That includes AI literacy, audience engagement, short-form video, visual storytelling, data-informed commissioning, community building, product thinking, and deeper niche expertise. But, the answer is not to tell every journalist to become good at everything. That creates anxiety and mediocrity.

The leadership task is to decide which skills matter most for the newsroom’s strategy, who needs to develop them, how they will be practiced, and how they will be rewarded.

Training should be tied to real editorial priorities. If younger audiences are a strategic priority, train people in formats, topics, presentation, and user needs that actually serve younger audiences. If trust is a priority, train reporters in transparency, community dialogue, and visible expertise. If AI is a priority, train around real newsroom tasks, not abstract tool demos.

The leadership implication: Skills development can no longer be a side activity. It has to become part of the operating model.

The uncomfortable conclusion

The Future Newsrooms Study 2026 does not describe a future that is far away. It describes a present many newsrooms have not yet organised themselves to meet. The challenge for editorial leaders is not awareness. It is execution.

Here are the key takeaways:

• We know audience engagement matters.
• We know trust is changing.
• We know AI will reshape workflows.
• We know younger audiences expect different formats, voices, and value.
• We know strategy must be clearer.

The question is whether our daily newsroom routines reflect that knowledge. For many organisations, the honest answer is not yet. That is where leadership matters most. Not in declaring transformation, but in making transformation operational — in the morning meeting, in the commissioning process, in what gets stopped, in what gets measured, in who gets trained, in how reporters use their time, and in how the newsroom defines success.

The newsrooms closing these gaps will not be the ones with the longest strategy documents. They will be the ones where strategy changes behaviour. That is the work newsroom leaders need to start now.

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