World Press Trends Outlook 2023-2024

Abstract

After the sobering read seen in our 2022-23 report, this year’s World Press Trends study strikes a more cautiously optimistic note, with more than half of the respondents conveying a positive outlook about their companies' business prospects for the foreseeable future. This is despite publishers grappling with challenges on various fronts, including elevated inflation and interest rates, surging paper and printing expenses, continual shifts within advertising markets and audience behaviours, as well as wider geopolitical uncertainty reflected in conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere. Exploring the origins of what some have referred to as a polycrisis, Thomas Homer-Dixon, a political scientist and executive director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, recently asked in Vox: “Why so much is going wrong at the same time”? Meanwhile, wider strategic challenges such as the surge of Generative AI, changing relationships with platforms and continued challenges to press freedom and freedom of expression, also continue to vex many journalists and publishers. In response, news publishers are inevitably looking closely at their revenue strategy, investment priorities, areas of focus, cost management, and their stance on areas such as AI and other technologies. We delve into these themes extensively within this report. Our analysis is founded on comprehensive insights shared with WAN-IFRA during the summer. From July to September 2023, we collected responses to an online survey from 175 C-suite and senior news executives spanning 60 distinct countries. Once again, their valuable insights serve as the cornerstone of this long-running annual study.