Thread by @risj_oxford

More than a month on from our global series of #DNR20 launches, revisit some of the insights from our brilliant panellists including from 🇰🇪🇵🇭🇭🇰🇬🇧🇮🇳🇸🇬 for a snapshot of how the news media is coping in this transformative year.

“As much as we have very high trust levels in traditional sources of news it doesn’t seem to guarantee the same level of viewership” @MukamiPurity @AfUncensored discussed findings from #DNR20 at the Africa launch

"It’s quite understandable that people feel they can make up their own minds. They want to hear what politicians say in their own words what they believe in” @hlatseentle comments on South Africans’ wish for the media to report potentially misleading political statements #DNR20

"At the time when journalism really matters and the public is looking for good journalism to make sense of this pandemic the industry is not coping. Advertising revenue almost disappeared and print/broadcasters had to introduce salary cuts.” @hlatseentle at #DNR20 Africa launch

“I think there’s a huge gap in Kenya for independent, digital media if it gets the formula right. Because it’s now possible to distribute digitally stuff that is different, and it looks like you’re getting a lot of the same stuff from the same brands [on and offline]” -@nicnewman

“The media industry in African countries needs to do a lot more to invest to get data and information together, so we can learn from each other rather than having to learn from the data set that comes from Europe and North and South America.” says @ChrisRoper of @Code4Africa

Watch the Africa launch of the #DNR20 here:
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🎙️@anantgoenka @IndianExpress said: “We see the average time on site as 2-3 minutes, but if someone’s coming and spending 15 minutes on a piece of content in audio format, it’s a really encouraging sign.”

🇮🇳@rasmus_kleis: “India is indicative of where the future of news lies around the world. It has a young population embracing mobile and digital media with great enthusiasm. #DNR20

@kapur_ritu @TheQuint said at the India #DNR20 launch: “If you can build direct traffic to your site - and part of that includes paywalls - I don’t think advertising is disappearing anytime soon.”

At the #DNR20 India launch @panavi said: “Government advertising is a very big source of revenue right now. Through a network like ours it is close to about 10%.”

“I think news is a unique market where more competition has reduced the quality of news,” says @newslaundry's @AbhinandanSekhr, chair of the India #DNR20 launch:

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At our APAC #DNR20 launch @rishadist of @splicenewsroom said: “We’re seeing the emergence of such a seeding of ideas for media start-ups. This has afforded them a massive opportunity. You have low costs, a ton of free tools and ideas. We like to call it the golden age of media.”

🇵🇭@miriamgracego: “In the case of @rappler, we launched our crowdfunding efforts and our membership programme at the height of government attacks on the newsroom. This is how our loyal readers saw a way to support us directly.”

🇭🇰@yingworld: “Hong Kong has seen 29% of readers pay for news - a spike of 12% from the year before. That should make us proud as we support the news. Against a background of traditional, corporate-owned polarised media, you have an explosion of independent media to give a voice”

Watch our Asia-Pacific launch of our Digital News Report 2020 hosted by @splicenewsroom's @alansoon

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“'Necessity is the mother of invention,'” and so it came to pass, overnight, when we had to empty 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We’ve got people working remotely driving those technical functions on laptops, and it has driven a revolution." @deborahturness President, NBC International

"I took a decision to allow obituaries to be free of charge. We discovered that as families were unable to have proper funerals - a limited number of mourners, some being buried with nobody present - the local newspaper became part of the closure." @JayMitchinson @yorkshirepost

"There are Sunday Times readers who think that we’re being unpatriotic in doing forensic reporting [around COVID-19] but often when I go back to them and say 'you wouldn’t want us not to ask these questions' they then agree" - @EmmaTuckerST tells us at the #DNR20 UK launch

🇬🇧Watch the UK launch of the Digital News Report 2020