Insight Shapes News

Most people in media have not heard the term "change tax," but they have felt it. Selma Stern describes it as work that keeps coming back without ever getting resolved, like the same alignment meeting held three times in a year, with nothing decided each time.
In this episode, host Nils Ove Håland Riise talks with Selma Stern, an independent advisor to media companies. Stern has worked as Chief of Staff at Axel Springer, Chief Membership Officer at Business Insider, and Chief Customer Officer at Fortune, after starting her career at BCG.
Her main point centers on how newsroom structures have not kept pace with how the work itself has changed. In the print era, roles were fixed and predictable. An editor-in-chief's job description barely changed from year to year, and the workflow, from writer to editor to press, was linear and well understood. Digital broke that. Editors now need to work fluently with product, data, and technology teams that speak a different language and move on a different rhythm. AI is accelerating that shift again, requiring even more flexibility and cross-team coordination than the digital transition already demanded. Stern argues that many media companies are still organized the way they were for print, and that structure is becoming a real constraint as the pace of change increases.
To see whether this pattern holds up across the industry, Stern analyzed employee reviews from 20 publishers in 9 countries, looking for language about friction (silos, unclear ownership) versus language about integration (clear roles, teams working well together). Publishers with the most friction language were shrinking or had recently laid off staff. Publishers that were growing, including the New York Times, the Economist, and Le Monde, showed more integration language than friction.
That pattern shows up clearly in a real example. In the same week in February 2026, the New York Times announced record subscriber growth while the Washington Post's struggles were widely reported. Stern argues the real difference is not who owns each company, but how each one is organized.
The episode ends with a look ahead: micropayments, AI agents that could buy articles on a reader's behalf, and whether subscriptions are still the right model for news.
Topics covered:
What the change tax is, in Selma Stern's own words
Why print-era roles and workflows do not translate to digital and AI
How editors now need to work across product, data, and technology teams
How Stern measured this across 20 publishers using employee reviews
New York Times and Washington Post: same week, opposite results
Micropayments, AI agents, and the future of subscriptions

Subscribe to Insight Shapes News for conversations on journalism, AI, personalization, and structural change in the news industry.

You can read more about the change-tax here:
https://asternlook.substack.com/p/the-change-tax?triedRedirect=true

Find Selma Stern:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/selmastern/

In this episode of Insight Shapes News by Kilkaya, host Nils Ove Håland Riise sits down with Helge Voll Hustad, Homepage Editor at VG — Norway's largest news site, where he curates the homepage with news for millions of Norwegians.
They start with VG's now-famous "Ice Ice Baby" homepage, run in the middle of one of the darkest news months of the year, and what it says about the room editors have to experiment, even on a heavy news day.
From there, Helge walks through the real mechanics of editing a tabloid homepag at scale: why "the mix" of hard news and light news is a constant balancing act, why a billionaire's name in a headline often underperforms simply writing "the billionaire," and why familiar faces like Prime Minister Støre don't need a caption at all — something AI headline tools still can't reliably figure out.
The conversation also digs into personalization and control. Helge used to be able to place every single story on VG's front page by hand. Now an algorithm controls everything below the top 20 — and he's candid about what that trade-off costs an editor, what VG would need to see before moving that line further, and how the team weighs personalization against its societal responsibility to surface hard news.
They close on the three KPIs VG actually optimizes for, the "superuser trap" of editing for readers who visit eight times a day versus once, and why VG's extreme high direct-traffic share makes the homepage worth protecting.
🎧 Topics we cover:
The "Ice Ice Baby" homepage and how far editorial humor can go
What a homepage editor actually does, curating 70–80 live articles
"The mix" — balancing hard news, sport, celebrity and politics
Why an NYT study of tens of thousands of A/B tests found no universal rule
Billionaire vs. named billionaire, and when a picture replaces a caption
Where AI headline generation breaks down — and why
Losing control: from editing every story to only the top 20
The bonfire principle vs. personalization, and the societal obligation problem
Clicks, quick exit, and demographics — VG's three core KPIs
The "superuser" trap: editing for readers who visit 8x a day vs. once
Why so much of VG's traffic comes directly to the Homepage
A closing question passed from Tarmo Paju (Delfi) on journalism's role in covering war
🎧 Subscribe to Insight Shapes News for conversations on journalism, AI, personalization, and the structural changes shaping the news industry.

What happens when two people who talk before every episode finally sit down in front of a microphone together?
In this episode of Insight Shapes News by Kilkaya, host Nils Ove Håland Riise is joined by Tarjei Gilbrant, CEO and co-founder of Kilkaya, fresh from the INMA World Media Congress in Berlin.
Both participated in separate study tours visiting major German publishers. This conversation is their debrief — not a polished summary, but a direct exchange on what actually made an impression, and what it means for the industry.
The episode covers several publishers across both tours. Die Zeit stood out for its multi-format strategy and how it uses investigative data journalism — including an AI-assisted project that made Nazi party membership records from the US National Archives searchable for the first time. Tagesspiegel surfaced something most publishers quietly recognize but rarely address: their homepages are built for people who visit ten times a day, not the majority who arrive once.
Media Pioneer operated from two boats on a Berlin river. That detail aside, what made it notable was a subscription model reaching 76,000 paying subscribers — and a community-first approach that includes a tier priced at 10,000 euros per year.
Der Spiegel ended its relationship with Outbrain and Teads. Tarjei explains why he sees this as worth celebrating, and why he considers that category of widget a structural problem for editorial trust — not just a vendor choice.
Running through all of it is a question the industry keeps circling back to: in a world where AI can generate content at scale and platforms continue to reduce referral traffic, what is the actual advantage of being a publisher?
🎧 Topics we cover:
How Die Zeit used AI to make historical Nazi membership records searchable and what it produced editorially
Why the homepage is still optimized for the wrong reader
The build-or-buy question and why enthusiasm is a productivity multiplier
Why trust is no longer just an advantage — it may be the only one
What Media Pioneer gets right about community and subscription
The campfire analogy and why shared editorial context still matters
Why AI confabulates with confidence on low-data subjects — and what that means for breaking news
Der Spiegel removing Outbrain and Teads, and the revenue outcome
Why republishing the same content as everyone else has no future
What multi-format strategy actually looks like when done well
If you work in newsroom leadership, editorial strategy, product, or publishing, this episode is a ground-level account of what some of Europe's most interesting publishers are doing — and what the industry still needs to figure out.
🎧 Subscribe to Insight Shapes News for conversations on journalism, AI, personalization, and the structural changes shaping the news industry.

Content Personalization in news products has typically been placed in low-risk areas—below articles or in separate recommendation modules further down on the page.
What happens when it is introduced higher up the page? We talk about the top!
In most news products, around 80% of clicks happen on the top part of the page. Very few readers scroll far enough to engage with content further down. This makes the top section both the most valuable and the most sensitive area to change.
In this episode of Insight Shapes News by Kilkaya, host Nils Ove Håland Riise speaks with Tarmo Paju (Managing Editor - Development and Innovation) and Ivar Krustok (Chief AI Officer) from Delfi about their approach to testing personalization in a more visible editorial context.
Delfi did not begin with the homepage. The work started in the sports section—a high-volume environment with frequent updates and a loyal audience. This provided a controlled setting to test how personalization affects both editorial workflows and user behaviour.
Even in this setting, the questions were familiar. Editorial teams need to understand how content is selected, how priorities are set, and what level of control remains. All the things that we question with Black box personalization creating echo chambers...
The discussion focuses on how Delfi structured this work. Personalization is applied within defined boundaries, where editors can prioritise, override, and adjust outcomes. The system is based on simple signals, including whether a story has already been read, combined with editorial input.
This changes how the front of a section is managed. Some manual work is reduced, while responsibility for key editorial choices remains.
🎧 Topics we cover:
Why personalization is usually limited to lower parts of the page

Why Delfi chose the sports section as a starting point

How personalization behaves in a high-volume news environment

What editorial control looks like in practice

How pinning and override functions are used

Why transparency matters for internal adoption

The role of simple behavioural signals in ranking content

How workflows change for front page editors

What to consider before expanding to the homepage

The relationship between relevance, coverage, and editorial responsibility
If you work with editorial strategy, product, or personalization, this episode examines how these systems can be introduced without disrupting core editorial principles.
🎧 Subscribe to Insight Shapes News for conversations on journalism, AI, personalization, and structural change in the news industry.

Technology used to feel neutral. Infrastructure choices were seen as operational decisions handled by IT teams. That assumption is now being challenged.
In this episode of Insight Shapes News by Kilkaya, host Nils Ove Håland Riise speaks with Endre, a technology strategist and founder of the initiative Choose European, which maps European software alternatives and promotes greater digital sovereignty.
The conversation explores why technology infrastructure is increasingly becoming a strategic question for news organizations. As AI accelerates, cloud platforms consolidate power, and geopolitical tensions influence technology ecosystems, decisions about vendors, models, and infrastructure can directly affect independence, cost structures, and long-term flexibility.
Endre explains why the idea that technology is neutral is fading. Infrastructure providers control data flows, AI capabilities rely on massive datasets, and dependency on a small group of global platforms can create strategic vulnerabilities for publishers and companies.
The conversation examines what realistic alternatives look like. Rather than framing the choice as Europe versus the US, Endre argues for hybrid strategies that combine global innovation with diversified infrastructure, open-source technologies, and regional providers.
For media organizations, this shifts technology from a procurement decision to a leadership responsibility.
🎧 Topics we cover:
Why technology is no longer politically neutral
How AI is accelerating infrastructure dependency
The strategic risks of vendor lock-in in cloud and AI platforms
Why newsroom technology decisions belong in the boardroom
Digital sovereignty and what it actually means in practice
How publishers may be repeating the same dependency pattern seen with search and social
Why hybrid infrastructure strategies may become the norm
The role of open-source technologies in reducing strategic risk
Why Europe is seeing a renewed push for sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure
How media organizations can start diversifying their technology stack
If you work in newsroom leadership, editorial strategy, product, or technology, this episode explores why infrastructure decisions may become one of the most important strategic choices facing media organizations in the coming decade.
🎧 Subscribe to Insight Shapes News for conversations on journalism, AI, personalization, subscriptions, and the structural changes shaping the news industry.

Chapters:
00:00 The Shift in Tech Control and Societal Development
00:16 Andre Dingsør's Perspective on Digital Sovereignty
00:44 The Changing Nature of Technology as a Geopolitical Tool
00:56 Biggest Underestimated Tech Risks for News Publishers
01:04 Technology and Trust in Journalism
01:25 What Newsrooms Need to Understand About Tech Changes
02:00 Andre Dingsør's Background and Focus on Sovereignty
02:12 The Political Shift in Tech Infrastructure
04:03 AI as an Accelerator of Geopolitical Power
05:47 The European Response to Tech Sovereignty
08:55 Dependency on US Tech and Social Media
10:00 European Cloud and AI Solutions for Media
11:36 Influence of Infrastructure on Editorial Independence
12:58 Bias and Control in Large Language Models
15:07 Trust and Data Security in AI and Cloud
17:29 The Cost Wave of AI Infrastructure
19:35 Migration Challenges in Tech Stack Dependencies
20:50 Building Digital Sovereignty Through European Solutions
23:35 Europe's Viable Alternatives to US Tech Giants
26:43 US Tech Mindset and European Market Dynamics
28:21 Balancing Global AI Leadership with Responsibility
29:41 Using Hybrid Models for Cost and Sovereignty
33:30 Local Language Models and Cultural Nuances
35:09 Practical Steps for News Publishers on Tech Sovereignty
39:11 The Future of Rebalancing Global Tech Power
40:18 Leadership in the Age of Technological Change
42:29 The Role of Media in Crisis and Information Dissemination