As journalism adapted to the digital age, news product roles emerged in the mid-1990s. These roles combine the ethics of journalism, the business of news organizations and audience needs, according to the News Product Alliance (NPA).
They work across teams, including reporters, audience, advertisers and developers, to make sure the organization is providing the best experience for their audience.
“Some will say news is the product,” said Shannan Bowen, the executive director of the North Carolina Local News Workshop. “I think the experience is the product. News is what people are getting through that experience.”
As product roles expand in news organizations, news product professionals are working to define training, certification and newsroom positions to better integrate product work into newsrooms and establish career pathways.
“We now understand that part of our job is to develop the content, distribute the content, but also to create an experience of what the audience’s interaction with our content is,” said Feli Carrique, the executive director of NPA.
The pathway to product work
Many people who do product work don’t start out in product early in their career. Product managers can come from many places, like audience positions or editorial roles leading a technical project. Often, those doing product work may not have an official product title.
“A lot of the [product] behaviors are pretty reasonable and newsrooms would say they support it,” said Jeremy Bowers, the global chief technology officer at POLITICO. “The actual role has not existed and does not really exist. It’s basically defined by a handful of people who are doing it.”
Because product is a new discipline, many entry-level product jobs are only starting to emerge. Madison Karas, a product manager at the Baltimore Banner, began her career in 2022.
She felt fortunate that her graduation coincided with the Banner’s launch, which included a product team with junior product managers.
“If that position hadn’t been opened, I would have expanded into some other product-adjacent role,” Karas said.
News product roles require an understanding of the function of many different departments in a news organization, which can be difficult to do for those early in their career, said Becky Bowers, the vice president of product development at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“You are expected to be a leader and an organizer and someone who has very high emotional intelligence and the ability to collaborate across different teams and to roll with a lot of challenging situations and change management,” Becky Bowers said. “It’s a lot.”
Training for a product career pivot
As product jobs expand, those in product roles need training to help improve their skills, including areas like user experience design, audience research, and subscriptions. These trainings serve two purposes — strengthening candidates for product jobs and introducing more journalists to the discipline.
“I had exposure to a lot of different roles in journalism through some of my prior fellowships and internships … I got to a point that was like, once you start thinking about the entire system and workflow, how things work, you can’t really stop,” Karas said.
Much of the training that goes into news product work can come from doing work in the field, but support organizations like NPA hope to provide training that doesn’t come from traditional avenues, such as college programs.
“There is no product degree,” Carrique said. “That does not exist.”
The future of product work
While entry-level product positions are beginning to emerge, those looking to pivot to product roles report that they often lack guidance on how to do so. A survey of the News Product Alliance’s Mentor Network said more than 30 percent of emerging product thinkers struggle with navigating career changes.
Bowen said product thinkers in the middle of their careers need guidance in order to step into newsroom leadership with a product mindset.
“At any kind of news organization, we need product thinkers who are helping to create a product culture throughout the organization,” she said.
While training in product concepts can help those looking to transition into the discipline, it can only go so far without buy-in from news organizations to invest in product roles, Carrique said.
“Creating career pathways is an all-of-us work,” Carrique said. “It’s the work that we all need to do in our organizations and collectively, to offer that space for newcomers to the discipline.”
