SODP Dispatch - 1 May 2025

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Why Online Publishers Need a VPN: Protecting Data, Sources, and Revenue

By SODP Staff

As an online publisher, you’re likely exposed to countless security risks – from data theft and censorship to geographic restrictions on your revenue.

To protect your information and the confidentiality of your sources, it’s a good idea always to use a virtual private network, also known as a VPN.

Here, you’ll learn how a VPN can improve your security and privacy, as well as give you access to international opportunities.

Why Data Protection and Privacy Matter for Online Publishers One of the biggest threats you can experience as an online publisher is the security of your data. Emails, internal documents, login credentials, or a publication’s private information can be targeted by a cyberattack.

52% of news publishers said they had been hacked or suffered a data breach in the prior year.

Hackers, government agencies, and even competitors can try to obtain your information with malicious intent.

We saw this after Disney suffered a breach, which leaked over 1 terabyte of internal communications in 2024.

A VPN encrypts your internet connection, making it harder for a third party to intercept the information you’re sending.

This is essential, for example, if you frequently work connected to public networks. At the same time, with a VPN, you can hide your IP address.

This makes it difficult for someone to identify your location, which is particularly important for those vulnerable to censorship or harassment.

💡 What you will learn:

• What Are Cyber ​​Threats?

• Protecting Confidential Sources

• Real Cases of Censorship and Persecution

• Revenue Protection and Access to Global Markets

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AI, The Double-edged Sword of Creativity, and Why Publishers Must Embrace It

By Vahe Arabian

It’s cliche now to say that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed everything, but it’s also inescapably true.

AI is so deeply entrenched in our everyday lives that it has paradoxically become almost invisible – a recent report by Reddit, GroupM and WPP found that only 1 in 6 consumers can often tell when they’re using AI-enabled tools. At the same time, AI’s rapid rise and widespread integration has sparked apprehension about its potential to disrupt various sectors of the workforce. For publishers, these concerns are particularly acute.

Publishers face the dual challenge of embracing AI’s efficiencies while safeguarding the integrity and quality of human-authored content. The rise of AI-powered search, referrals, and summaries, threaten to draw viewers – and advertisers – away from publisher domains.

The fear is not just about the displacement of journalists, but the erosion of creativity, engagement, and the authenticity that readers expect and that brands invest in. Having already contended with multiple pressures on their monetisation model, including the rise of walled gardens and social media platforms, AI presents a complete fracture.

Nevertheless, publishers can’t turn back the clock – the AI age is here and it’s here to stay. So they find themselves at a crossroads, needing to balance preservation of their core values with a competitive imperative to innovate.

💡 What you will learn:

• The AI content questions

• Harnessing AI in ways that deliver results

• A full embrace of the future

🧰 Journalist's Toolbox AI

Looking to integrate AI into your journalism workflow? Journalist's Toolbox AI offers a curated collection of AI tools tailored for journalists, editors, and educators. From transcription and summarization to data analysis and digital security, this platform provides resources to enhance your reporting and storytelling capabilities. See more ▸

🧭 Insights from NAMS25 on AI's Impact in Media

At the Nordic AI in Media Summit 2025 (#NAMS25), Ezra Eeman, Strategy & Innovation Director at NPO, introduced the "infinity paradigm," highlighting that news organizations are no longer just competing with other media outlets but are now contending with an endless array of knowledge providers. See more ▸

By Vahe Arabian

✍️Beyond the byline, embracing the creator mindset

In the battle for attention, journalists who can’t engage and service can’t compete.

Traditional journalism thrived on rigor and one-way storytelling. But today’s audiences demand interaction, not passive consumption. Journalists trained solely in conventional methods lack the skills to engage fragmented, sceptical audiences, where trust hinges on relatability, not just authority.

This is what the demands of present-day audiences are:

• Multi-format agility: Stories must adapt to articles, video explainers, and tweet-threads—all platform-optimized.

• Authenticity over polish: Gen Z/Millennials trust creators for raw, human-centred storytelling over traditional media.

• Two-way dialogue: Audiences want to comment, share, and co-create, turning readers into communities.

Journalists-creators will always win because they know TikTok hooks, LinkedIn insights, and Instagram visuals. One story becomes a podcast, infographic thread, and newsletter, tripling reach. Behind-the-scenes insights humanize newsrooms, fostering loyalty.

Here are hiring takeaways for publishers:

1. Audit content performance gaps: If video drives 40% of traffic but your team lacks editing skills, prioritize hiring journalists with video scripting and production experience.

2. Rewrite job descriptions: Replace “strong writing skills” with “proven ability to grow social audiences” or “experience repurposing content across 3+ platforms.”

3. Reskill strategically: Offer 1–2 day workshops on SEO, basic video editing (CapCut, Canva), or community management tools like Discord.

4. Set guardrails for personal branding: Allow journalists to build public profiles but mandate disclosure of affiliations and alignment with editorial guidelines.

Publishers clinging to the “traditional vs. digital” debate may lose. The real divide is between those who adapt and those who stagnate. Audiences aren’t choosing between quality and engagement; they demand both. Hiring journalist-creators isn’t a trend; it’s the baseline for relevance moving forward.

Meta Launches ChatGPT Rival, Meta AI App | Adweek

Meta on Tuesday announced that it is rolling out a ChatGPT-like AI app, bringing the capabilities of its Llama 4 model beyond its social platforms and into a standalone platform with text, voice, and image capabilities. Dubbed the Meta AI app, the launch is “a first step toward building a more personal AI,” the company wrote in an announcement on its blog.
Read more ▸

Channel Reporting Is Coming To Performance Max Campaigns | Search Engine Journal

Google just launched substantial upgrades to its Performance Max campaigns today. In their announcement, they introduced long-anticipated reporting features that will provide advertisers with much-needed visibility into how their campaigns perform across different Google surfaces.
Read more ▸

Google Search Console Discover Performance Report Hack Suggests Desktop & Mobile Data Filters Coming | Search Engine Roundtable

We know Google will be bringing Google Discover to the desktop interface, heck, we've seen Google testing it for a while now. But did you know that Google will also show the breakdown of mobile versus desktop performance of Google Discover in Google Search Console? Read more ▸

All talk and no clout as AM takes a beating from FM | InDaily

Predicting Adelaide’s radio ratings is almost as difficult as picking a clear winner in this Saturday’s federal election. Top honour in GFK’s second survey for 2025, released this morning, goes to the entire FM band. My prediction for survey one a month ago was that the new MIX102.3 breakfast team of Max Burford and Haley Pearson would capture audience attention via their huge promotional campaign. Read more ▸

GroupM bets global privacy reforms ‘will make 95% of web untrackable in very near future’; shifts market pitch to ‘intelligence beyond identity’ as alt-IDs, hashed emails face wipe out | Mi3

The global swing to tighter digital consumer privacy protection has triggered WPP-owned GroupM to entirely rewrite its approach to targeting and media – ditching data ownership and the consumer data stockpiles that GroupM Nexus CEO Ryan Menezes thinks are highly risky, and will soon become obsolete.
Read more ▸

Local and independent newsrooms unite for national grassroots campaign, $70,000 raised so far | LINA

For just one week 50 newsrooms across Australia are uniting for a grassroots fundraising and awareness campaign for local and independent news. The Our News, Your Voice campaign is a timely opportunity to reflect on the role of local and independent media in democracy, supporting informed voters, holding authorities accountable, and bringing communities together in an increasingly polarised society.
Read more ▸