Looking back on the first year of the News Product Alliance
A year ago today we launched the News Product Alliance and I published a Medium post titled, “Why I quit my job to launch the News Product Alliance.” I wrote about how, as the pandemic contributed to a growing unease across the journalism industry, I wanted to created a community for “Product thinkers — those with the abilities to align editorial, audience, technology and business goals” because I believe they have “become the missing link to creating sustainable journalism in the digital age.”
That is all very true. But what I didn’t say in that post is a huge reason why I quit my job was that I felt completely burnt out. After years of managing change, plus the added stress of three years of infertility and the pandemic, I had reached a breaking point. I needed a break.
By stepping away from my full-time job, I suddenly found myself well positioned to lead this new initiative — building a community for people like me — that I had been volunteering on for the previous year. The News Product Alliance became a lifeline for me in this year of transition. So today, I want to tell you a little bit more about what this year has been like, for both me personally and for the NPA.
The idea for the News Product Alliance started in April 2019, when I was asked to join a small group of product thinkers in a Dallas hotel room to discuss how we could help build sustainable news organizations. During that session, our group talked about the role of product in our news organizations, compared org charts and empathized with each other over the ongoing resistance and lack of respect for our work that we faced every day. It became clear during our meeting that news product leaders like me, and the others they’d gathered in the room, would benefit from having a community of support and practice.
That meeting led to SRCCON:Product in February 2020. The conference was more popular than we anticipated, and we heard from many participants that they finally felt seen — that in their news organizations, they felt isolated, frustrated by resistance to change, and lacked clear mentorship or a path for career progression. In coming together and sharing their work, they felt inspired, motivated and more prepared.
After SRCCON:Product, a group of us started making plans to launch a community organization to address these needs and continue what we’d started. I was elected to head the 14-person steering committee. And after I quit my job, I became the person best positioned to make this thing really happen. By September, we had a fleshed out business model, a $29,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, and a simple website with an email sign-up. That was it.
Even when we launched a year ago, there still wasn’t really a there-there — more than anything, the NPA was still an idea, a vision for the future — that we could build a community of news product thinkers to share knowledge, support each other and elevate the discipline of news product management.
Since then, we’ve grown to 2,600 subscribers and nearly 800 Slack members — 44% of whom were active on Slack this week! (Join us on Slack!) We’ve hosted 580 attendees at 8 virtual events, including our inaugural Summit in March 2021. Our community is global — 49% of our Slack members live outside the United States. And we’re striving to make it even more diverse — currently, 33% identify as Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color.
My North Star for this past year has been to establish a proof of concept — that this community needs to exist and will provide value for the overall news ecosystem — so that we can make it to that next stage of development.
This year has also been an exercise in catharsis. In building this community, I hoped to create a lifeline for people who felt like me before they reached their breaking point. And as a part-time job, it enabled me to take the space I needed to work on my mental health and pursue IVF (an endeavor I’m happy to report was successful 🤰).
Leading the News Product Alliance gave me the opportunity for rest that I needed, while also significantly boosting my career. I got to participate in Poynter’s Media Transformation Challenge program with the support of Knight and Google News Initiative. I met and built relationships industry experts from around the world. And I received an amazing platform for my personal brand that will help me as I consider what my next career move will be.
As I think about what comes next, I’m excited to pass this opportunity on to someone else — so that they can benefit in the same way that I have, and continue to grow the NPA by building out the infrastructure the organization needs to become sustainable and achieve greater outcomes. (The application to apply to be the next NPA Executive Director closes this Monday, Sept. 27!) And I’m excited to immerse myself in motherhood, a challenge I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to experience. I honestly don’t think that I would have had the courage a year ago to take at least six months maternity leave, if I hadn’t received both the opportunities and support that working on the NPA provided me this past year.
My story is an example of how we want to measure the success of the News Product Alliance: By how we’re helping people level up in their careers and become stronger leaders of digital development in news organizations.
If you’ve been impacted by the NPA, even in just a small way, we want to hear from you: How has the NPA helped you?
Have you learned something new that made your job easier? Have you noticed more cultural change in your organization around product thinking? Have you made a connection that led to a new career opportunity? Or maybe you found confidence to take on a new opportunity at your existing job?
If you have a story about how the NPA has made an impact on your career, your work or your organization, please share it with us. Your stories help us secure the future of this community. Our funders — and potential funders! — want to know how we’re making a difference across the news ecosystem and supporting those of you working to build sustainable, audience-focused news organizations.
And stay tuned: We have big plans for the NPA! Our 2022 roadmap includes a second annual NPA Summit, and lots of new programming, including mentorship, training, networking events. All of which our community has made possible by investing themselves in our organization. A special thank you to our Board and Board Chair, Anita Zielina, and our community team, Emma Carew Grovum, Max Resnick, Fabienne Meijer, Mary Tyler March, Rocío Gálvez, and Tony Elkins.
