In 2020, a new Italian media outlet launched with a radical premise: no website, a newsroom with an average age of 25, and a laser focus on social media. That outlet, Will, has since grown to 80 people with €11 million in annual revenue, proving that it had tapped into a long-neglected shift in how younger audiences consume news.

◼ Will’s success wasn’t just about being on Instagram; it was about reimagining news for the platform. "We paid special attention to topics that matter most to our audience, but we also reframed broader issues," says Francesco Zaffarano, Will’s Executive Audience and Content Strategist. For instance, they approached Italy's cost-of-living crisis not from the perspective of property-owning families, but of young professionals struggling in unstable rental markets.

◼ Initially dismissed by critics for oversimplifying complex topics, Will’s approach was ultimately imitated across the industry. Zaffarano defends their model: "Traditional news can feel like jumping into a Netflix series at season four, episode six. You lack context. If you simplify without dumbing down, that’s a public service. We lower that barrier to entry.”

◼ The business model is equally disruptive. Around 70% of revenue comes from sponsored content created by the same journalists who produce their editorial work, ensuring consistent quality. While this has raised questions of independence, Zaffarano counters that they've "turned down a lot of offers" from companies whose values don't align.

◼ Living entirely on third-party platforms has its risks. "At a certain point... Meta began penalising IGTV, which had been our best-performing format. We quickly had to adjust," Zaffarano recalls. This vulnerability forced diversification, and today Will has a robust presence across TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp. "If Instagram disappeared tomorrow, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t be fatal."

◼ While Will thrives, Zaffarano is concerned about the industry's inertia. "Italian media still hasn’t woken up," he warns. "If other outlets don’t start investing strategically in innovation, they risk fading away."

❓ Will's story offers a powerful case study in meeting audiences where they are, both in format and perspective. What can legacy media learn from social-native upstarts like Will?

📍 Read the full article on our website to explore their strategy in more detail.

🇵🇱 As Poland's economic and political significance has grown, so has the need for nuanced, English-language reporting on the country. Filling that gap is Notes from Poland, an outlet that has evolved from a personal blog into a professional non-profit newsroom serving a global audience.

◼ The project began in 2014 but found its mission after the 2015 governmental change created a surge in demand for context-rich news. "It's very important for us to provide context, background, and history in some cases to help people understand," says editor-in-chief Daniel Tilles. "It's not enough just to report on what's happened today."

◼ The team's unique composition—a mix of Poles and foreigners, insiders and outsiders—allows them to bridge cultural and political divides. Their audience reflects this, comprising immigrants, the Polish diaspora, diplomats, and even Poles seeking a more balanced perspective than offered by partisan local media.

◼ While the outlet relies on a mix of grants and reader donations, it faced a near-catastrophic funding crisis this year when its largest grant was cancelled unexpectedly. The crisis was a stark lesson in financial vulnerability. "We've realised from the crisis we had this year that we were too reliant on a few sources of funding," Tilles explains.

◼ A swift response from 400 individual donors and a new foundation saved the outlet, highlighting the power of a loyal community. Now, Notes from Poland is strategically diversifying its funding model for 2026, exploring revenue-generating activities like events and advertising partnerships to ensure long-term sustainability.

❓What strategies are most effective for niche, non-profit media to achieve financial sustainability?

📍 Read the full article on our website to learn more about their journey.

For journalism students in Russia, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine didn't just change the world—it fundamentally altered their education and the very definition of their chosen profession. We spoke with several students (using pseudonyms for their safety) to understand what it's like to learn journalism in a country where free speech is severely suppressed.

◼ The classroom has become a space of fear and avoidance. "It was downright scary to even mention THAT topic in front of teachers," one student named Nastya recalls. Another, Vladimir, saw his curriculum change as liberal professors were replaced by instructors with military backgrounds. One assignment required a video about the "new regions"—the official term for occupied Ukrainian territories.

◼ For some, like a student named Kira, the war was the very reason she enrolled. "My understanding of the profession, of what I needed to remain human, all of this suddenly became clear and crystallised in journalism,” she says. Yet, she finds her program stuck in the past, with professors who "teach us to compromise."

◼ Another student, Katya, believes many of her professors are privately against the war but are afraid of being reported by their own students. "People who still want to produce and support honest journalism remain in universities," she says. "It’s just that the profession is in hiding."

◼ She offers a stark choice facing her generation: "If you enter journalism in Russia today, sooner or later, you have to choose between vanity and safety."

◼ Their futures hang in the balance. Some have already left the field. Others are considering emigration or carving out careers in "less risky" beats like culture or business, where the war can be more easily avoided. To gain the skills their universities can no longer offer, they seek out alternative training from NGOs and independent media schools.

◼ These testimonies reveal a generation of aspiring journalists grappling with impossible choices, trying to uphold journalistic integrity in a system designed to crush it.

❓ What is the long-term impact on a country's media landscape when its next generation of journalists is trained in an environment of censorship and fear?

📍 Read the full, in-depth report on our website.