Although not as prevalent as discussions around AI and U.S. President Donald Trump, leadership strategies for newsroom teams were a frequent talking point during the recent INMA World Congress of News Media in New York.

During five days of study tours, conference presentations, and topic-specific seminars, news executives shared how they connected with team members, how they engaged them with experimentation, and successful ways to lead during newsroom transformation.

Top-down connection

Die Zeit CEO Dr. Rainer Esser emphasised the importance of personal relationships in fostering team culture. 

“I was the first CEO to come in and talk to every person, and put them on the right track… . I would stand in the elevator and talk to people about how they feel, what music they listen to, what fears or ideas you have.” 

This hands-on leadership style created a sense of unity and openness, essential during the company’s turnaround from financial instability. 

Innovation only happens with employee engagement, Jessica Peppel-Schulz, CEO of Tamedia, told attendees: “Nothing will ever work if we don’t have the effort of the people to make it happen.”

Her approach to team building involves “internal cooperation, time, and patience,” beginning with “small teams [to achieve] small measurable results, fast successes with low risk.”

Engaging employees with experimentation

Reuters management encourages its newsroom to experiment with AI because what works for them could work for paying customers, Richard Baum, global general manager of Reuters newsroom operations, told study tour attendees.

“Everything we use is a candidate for something we can use for our customers,” he said.

Reuters began its AI programme about two years ago, and key AI tools now in regular use came from innovation encouraged by newsroom team members.

“One of the most satisfying things in this AI rollout is just discovering these colleagues who I would never in a million years think would be leaders in AI,” Mahesh Ramachandran, head of technology at Reuters, told study tour participants.

At The Atlantic, Vice President of Product Design Jim Quindlen advocated for embedding a startup culture into the newsroom to foster experimentation. 

The Atlantic’s Labs initiative has created a space for low-risk testing of new ideas, enabled by what Quindlen calls “an extremely team-oriented development process.”

The newsroom at Newsweek has shifted to a video culture under Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham. This is a big transition for newsroom staff, she told study tour attendees.

“The pendulum swinging entirely to video is certainly a culture shift,” she said. “We’re lucky to have a lot of early career journalists who are very eager. A lot of them came up through COVID when we were in our apartments, and they’re eager to get out and talk to people. They’re their own brands, Insta-famous or TikTok famous.

“What we’ve really done is presented video-first journalism as an opportunity for the reporters to broaden their skillset and add value to the newsroom when there are so many headwinds in the industry.”

Management during transformation

Transformation isn’t only technological, Andrew Morse, president/publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, told attendees, adding that 70% of the U.S. company’s top two levels of leadership have turned over in the past two years.

Building teams with the right mix of engineers, product developers, and journalists is essential to stay relevant, he said.

“The three things you need for any digital transformation are culture, talent, and time,” Morse said. “And it’s not just about hiring good people — it’s hiring people with very specific skill sets, with very clear roles and responsibilities, and rebuilding the operating model along with everything else.”

Jeanna Bryner, editor-in-chief at Scientific American, finds honesty about the struggle goes a long way with her staff.

“We have found when experimenting that if I tell the staff: ‘This is what we need to do and we need to do it know, and it’s going to be bumpy. I don’t have it all planned out. We’ll have to make changes, and be flexible.’ I think they’re open to that when I’m clear up front this may not be the smoothest process.”

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