25 October 2023

Snacks, facts and values: How news organisations can connect with Generation Z

No generation is causing news organisations more sleepless nights than Gen Z. Just how do you effectively connect with a group that’s fully digitally native, demanding and huge consumers of social media? It’s a puzzle that needs to be solved, and fast – Gen Z constitutes 32% of the global population and is predicted to be the primary demographic companies will be targeting by 2032.

The importance of Gen Z to the future of news organisations is underlined by the fact that authors Juan Señor and Jayant Sriram of Innovation Media Consulting devote an entire chapter in the latest FIPP Innovation in Media World Report to engaging those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s, both as consumers and employees.

“Millennials may have provided the bridging audience between the old and the new, but publishers of all hues and sizes will soon have to reckon with a new generation of news consumers who happen to be true digital natives,” the authors point out.

“Gen Z represents the capabilities and characteristics essential to digital transition: lifelong digital connectivity, a preference for collaboration, a growth mindset, and deep commitment.

“They hold the key to finding a sustainable future for news media but need to be allowed to turn it. The challenge is making space for their expertise and increasing their operational influence, especially at senior levels. It is much easier to set up a new company around these principles than migrate an existing one on to them.”

Do we really know Gen Z?

While countless column inches are dedicated to Gen Z each day – from The New York Times reporting on their voting habits to the Telegraph talking about the group’s favourite hobbies – there is still a lot of misconceptions about Zoomers, as consumers and workers.

“They are more engaged in more ways than people give them credit for,” Michael Bolden, CEO and executive director of the American Press Institute cautions in the Innovation in Media report.

A survey of young people ages 16 to 40 conducted by Media Insight Project, a collaboration between The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, showed that an estimated 79% of young Americans say they get news daily and 71% of this age group gets news from social media.

“Growing up in a post-information age world, Gen Z has naturally become large consumers of media,” the authors of the Innovation in Media report point out. “They’ve created daily digital habits when it comes to where they get their news. Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and even TikTok are no longer simply social media platforms; they’re an outlet where Gen Z consumes traditional news.”

Another survey from Statista shows that nearly nine in 10 US Gen Z adults spend more than an hour on social media each day, and nearly half spend more than three hours with the platforms, according to a Creatopy survey.

 “They grew up with the Internet. They’ve always had connected devices. They can find out things a lot faster than we could ever find out things. If they want to know something, they don’t go to the library. They go to YouTube,” says Corey Elliott, Executive Vice President of local market intelligence for U.S.-based Borrell Associates.

In the workplace Gen Z has harshly been judged as quitters, according to Ridhi Radia, Head of ED&I at Immediate Media Co, who went to bat for Zoomers at the recent Professional Publishers Association in London:

“There’s this misconception that they’re lazy and entitled. They’re sometimes known as ‘Generation Quit’, right? Because they go in and they’ll start for six months, and then they’ll leave.

“But actually, that’s a huge misconception because if they care about where they work and if they’re doing work that makes an impact, they’ll be a most loyal generation out there. You need to give them that empowerment.”

Providing snacks for Zoomers

So how do news organisations appeal to, engage and retain Gen Z readership? With Zoomers spending so much time on social media, creating compelling, bite-sized content on platforms like TikTok is key.

“Nowadays, you have much more a behaviour of snacking, where you’re brushing your teeth or waiting for your train or something, so you’ll just scroll through things and see everything that has happened,” Bente Zerrahn, Innovation Catalyst at Axel Springer, points out in the Innovation report. “It doesn’t matter where your information is from as long as you can access it when you need it.”

To get casual consumers to take the next step and leave social media for a news organisation’s site, it’s important that the website is clean and easy to use, Zerrahn adds. Curated content is a good hook, as Gen Zers will go deep down a rabbit hole if the content is well researched and relevant.

A common trait among Zoomers is their search for accuracy and authenticity when it comes to news content. According to Zerrahn, one of the biggest fears of many Gen Zers is spreading fake news.

Gen Z is very in tune with the way information can be manipulated online, which means they have high expectations of the content provided by publishers and will quickly drop them if they get a whiff of inaccuracy. Against this background, journalists and news organisations have an even more prominent role on social networks to provide truthful, credible.

Research from Ernst & Young found that 92% of Gen Z respondents said authenticity was more important than any other personal value. It’s a statistic that was backed up by Glamour Poland’s editor-in-chief Katarzyna Dabrowska at this year’s FIPP World Media Congress.

“Gen Z believe in being authentic and unique, and creating individuality on their own terms – and they are looking to us as a media brand to support that,” she said. “They also have a different relationship with consumerism.

“They understand that brands are nothing without consumers, and they understand that they hold the power in that relationship. Yet for them, products are not status symbols, so they are not as interested in collecting ‘things’ – they are more interested in experiences.”

Gen Z in the workplace

To reach Gen Z as consumers it just makes sense for news organisations to recruit Zoomers to their editorial teams, especially since Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms now fall under the umbrella of “newspaper readership”, and readers are getting younger and younger.

According to digital software publisher Twipe allowing for younger voices in the newsroom can not only make publications feel more relatable to Zoomers, but also help older readers understand the new generation more easily.

While a job in media is seen as a really attractive proposition by Gen Z – according to Chloe Combi, author, columnist and host of podcast You Don’t Know Me, 75% of young people she has spoken to like the industry – news organisations need to think carefully about how to attract and retain Zoomers.

Axel Springer’s Bente Zerrahn believes building multi-generational teams, bringing together younger and older professionals, would help employees “learn from one another and offer a variety of perspectives”.

To attract Gen Z, she suggests companies consider having dual leadership roles with an experienced manager and a younger employee who has a knowledge of how younger generations operate. According to Zerrahn, the idea of building these connections is key, and points out that Gen Z looks at the world in a “network way”.

“It’s really this thing of trying to connect things and becoming a network organisation, becoming a network newspaper,” she adds.

Of course, there is no point in having a Gen Z recruitment strategy if you then don’t get proper feedback from Zoomers. Zerrahn therefor stresses the importance of media outlets really listening to their younger staff members.

“Put young people in a position where they have a voice and create an environment where they feel safe speaking up,” she says. “Because these are the users of the future. They should, in some way, be involved in the product of the future.”

Conversations with Gen Z need to be a two-way street. Eager for career-progression, Zoomers value feedback on how they are performing.

Lucy Kueng, experienced strategic advisor and author of Hearts and Minds: Harnessing Leadership, Culture and Talent to Really Go Digital, says that even if managers completely understand this need, they often lack the time or skills to meet it.

Lacking the budget or scope to reward performance, may force managers to try and avoid feedback situations. Keung strongly recommends investment in building coaching and performance management skills in all team leaders.

Research has also shown that Zoomers need their value system to align with that of the company they work for. According to Immediate’s Ridhi Radia the two questions the media group gets a lot from new talent are: Does this role have opportunities to learn and grow with great mentors, and do the company’s value reflect my own?

It’s sentiment echoed by the authors of the Innovation Report. “Gen Z employees feel the need to create change, and they are so keen for their work to have meaning, that they may choose personal values over company values if the need arises, and are not afraid to question authority when necessary,” they point out.

“It is therefore important that their values are in harmony with those of their company and that they be given the scope to work on passion projects that match their personal values.”

Get the Innovation in Media 2023 World Report here.