Media organisations the world over consider engagement a central tenet of their work — but what that looks like varies widely. We examine the continuum of practices aiming to promote deeply participatory levels of engagement, and the challenges of inviting members into collaborative decision-making and co-production.

When the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 as an exclusive, member-nominated community of scientific scholars, it had practically every element of what today’s news organizations and supporters are seeking in their own membership initiatives. But the Society lost its grip on membership, seeing a sustained decline that offers lessons about the difficult challenges of transitioning from a niche to a generalist audience in a rapidly transitioning digital landscape.

We’re looking for a full-time operations manager who can join our team in New York City. If you’re detail-oriented and fascinated by news engagement and revenue models, we hope to hear from you.

In this project’s first year we hosted two groups, one for audience development staff and one for beat reporters, who want to work more closely with their sites’ audience members. Here we share what we’ve learned about how in demand these staffers and their skills are, why “impact” (like “community”) needs to be more clearly defined, and more that you can use with your own communities of practice.

As Spotify and other streaming services “consumerize” subscription models for media, cash-strapped news organizations are thinking of “Spotify for news” as a logical progression in the shift to reader revenue. Yet, this makes the faulty assumption that two identical business models — Spotify and many digital magazines charge $10 a month — deliver the same value to the end user. The reality is not so clear-cut.

Polls show that people trust journalists less than other professionals. But what do we really mean when we talk about “public trust” in news media? It will benefit us to highlight three ingredients: the accessibility of our sites and journalists; our journalists’ relatability (the “just like us” factor); and a sense of professional “selflessness” among journalists to protect the public interest over other interests.

Supporters of independent news tell us that sites worth their time, ideas, expertise, and money exemplify a consistent set of design principles. Hear about how inclusivity, humanity, humility, and other characteristics make some sites stand out in ways that encourage inexhaustible participation.

Involving audience members in the production and scrutiny of journalism blows up traditional access to information -- in a good way. We’ve found it enhances civic engagement and could also be a component for ensuring news organisations’ sustainability.

When OpenFile said it wanted to give readers more editorial control, the media community called it revolutionary. When the project closed two years later, they called it a failure. Somewhere in the middle is a valuable lesson about what it takes to put readers at the center of a news site.

“Membership” is a hot topic at journalism discussions and conferences around the world, yet membership in news is not a new idea. We look at how public broadcasters – some of the most experienced membership practitioners in journalism – are adapting as listener behaviors and needs change.