How publishers are strategizing for a second Trump administration: softer news and more social media

But for some publishers, it’s still too early to make any notable changes to editorial strategy. Three editors at top news organizations — who requested anonymity for candor — told Digiday at the end of last year that they felt prepared and poised to cover Trump’s second term and didn’t think it was necessary to shift resources or coverage plans yet.

However, it’s no secret that publishers are hoping for traffic to swell this year as a new presidential administration ushers in a busy news cycle — a welcome change, given the challenges of declining referral traffic and fragmented audiences.

“We see a big audience opportunity in the next nine to ten months after the election,” said Kevin Ponniah, BBC News’ head of digital news for North America. BBC relaunched its website at the end of 2023 to be more tailored to the North American market, and doubled the size of its news teams in Washington, D.C. and New York City.

And of course more eyeballs means more money. 

A publishing exec said a new president’s first year is when they outline “their most ambitious policy agenda,” and when “money swells” from brands to publishers that reach business leaders. That’s likely one of the reasons the publisher’s prebooking revenue — which represents a “sizeable percentage of total revenue” for the publisher because of its finite newsletter ad inventory — was pacing ahead of its goal in December, compared to the same time the year prior, the exec said. In December, the publisher’s local team was on track to end 2024 “double digits” above their sales goal, and its live events team was also tracking above their fourth quarter sales goal, they added. The exec declined to share raw figures.

It remains to be seen just exactly how Trump stands to affect news publishers’ traffic this time around. News publishers had less of a sustained traffic bump to their sites compared to the last election, likely in part due to the growing trend of news avoidance and audiences seeking information from other sources like independent creators and social media. A lot has changed since 2016, and how publishers will adapt to a second Trump run remains to be seen.

Here are some changes publishers are making in 2025:

Shifting schedules

The biggest change to one political news publisher’s social strategy is changing up staffers’ work schedules and expanding social monitoring.

Trump is “the most active typically when our journalists are not,” the first head of social said. Trump is posting on Truth Social, the conservative-leaning social media platform he owns, or X between 5 p.m. and midnight, whereas most of their team works a normal 9 to 5 day, they added.

“Like most news orgs, typically weekends or off hours you put on not your most experienced people,” the head of social said. “But if we think it is going to be very active, we’ll put on more experienced people [who know] what editorial decisions need to be made vs. somebody who might be a year out of J-school.”

Josh Awtry, svp of audience development at Newsweek, said his focus in 2025 is “more interactivity with our readership.” That means engaging with readers more in comments on its own site and on social. Newsweek has expanded its social team to five people when it hired a community manager last October to oversee on-site engagement such as manage comments and conduct reader polls, for example. New tools on Newsweek’s site are being added this month to highlight certain comments, and host onsite “Ask Me Anythings” and polls.

Newsweek receives an average of 8,000-10,000 comments across its articles each day, according to Awtry. Users have to register on Newsweek’s site to comment, which incentivizes reader registrations — another focus for Newsweek this year to grow first-party data and help personalize recommendations to readers, he said. However, Awtry declined to share more about this strategy or share the number of people who had registered to comment.

A lifestyle focus

Execs at Newsweek, The Independent and HuffPost told Digiday they will focus on softer, more lifestyle focused news content in 2025.

Awtry said this strategy can also help boost traffic. “Many days, the majority of our audience comes from Google Discover,” a platform that “favors increasingly softer, lifestyle and consumer focused” content, he said (he’s not alone in coming to that conclusion).

HuffPost will invest in its lifestyle section this year, with stories focused on “the American family,” said executive editor Kate Palmer. That includes stories like how to use technology to increase readers’ wellbeing, and coverage of different kinds of relationships and parenting styles. 

“One of the things that we recognize is that there’s nobody who just only cares about politics and nothing else. You can follow politics really closely, but also need advice on your marriage. We do try to recognize that people need a little bit of everything,” Palmer said.

Half of The Independent’s content is already not in the hard news category, according to Blair Tapper svp for the U.S. The Independent hired Louise Thomas as U.S. editor six months ago to build out lifestyle coverage this year in the areas of travel, personal finance and culture. The Independent plans to increase newsroom staff by about 25% in the U.S. in 2025 (The Independent currently has about 60 newsroom staffers in the U.S.). 

This strategy also provides more inventory to advertisers who are concerned about brand safety issues when spending against news publishers’ content. 

“I think the general feeling in market is a news site that solely exists around a breaking news desk is not going to be able to continue to create long-term renewable [direct] advertising partnerships,” Tapper said.

While this investment would have happened regardless of who was stepping into the White House this month, the focus on non-hard news content does give readers and advertisers more spaces away from the messiness of a divisive political landscape. (The Independent is also in the process of changing its URL from a “.co.uk” site to a “.com,” she said, which “reflects our commitment to the U.S.”)

Good for business, hard on staff

While a second Trump term could bring more readers (and money) to publishers’ sites, covering a president like Trump also can have a toll on reporters.

Another head of social at a large news publication said they were looking forward to a boost in readership and subscriptions spurred by a Trump-led news cycle. They recounted the Trump years as a time when their publication was “the most impactful,” and “at the height of our traffic” with White House reporters consistently breaking news.

“Every day was a different 5 p.m. scoop,” they said. 

But the head of social was cognizant of the risk of burnout. They compared the news cycle during the Biden administration compared to Trump’s administration like “a slow stream vs. a gushing river.”

“I could definitely see it being good for the business side of news, but the people side — we’re gonna have to watch that. I think we’re all going to have to take care of each other as journalists in this environment,” they said.

What TikTok ban?

Back in May 2024, execs at publications that have built followings and businesses on TikTok weren’t concerned about the threat of a TikTok ban.

It seems not much has changed since then, even after a federal appeals court upheld the decision to ban TikTok by Jan. 19 last month.

Three publishing execs told Digiday in December they weren’t worried about the ban or what it would mean for their shortform video strategy.

“We never pivoted our TikTok strategy since the tease of the ban,” said Wes Bonner, svp of marketing and audience development and head of social at BDG. “Our audience is still thriving there… and advertisers are still asking for TikTok.”

Chris Anthony, CRO at Gallery Media Group, said in an email, “If a ban on TikTok comes our way, we will follow where the consumer attention lands. The reality is that there will be a lot of change in this political climate and as always we will be watching and adapt quickly with our audiences.”