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Politico's texting Capitol Hill | Washington Post 'hyper-personalised' chatbot experience
Plus: the top 50 news websites in the US in September, and most publishers losing Google search visibility
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Welcome to this week’s Press Gazette Future of Media US newsletter on Friday, 10 October.
📱At Press Gazette we write all the time about the many ways publishers can engage with audiences in 2025. But one way that doesn’t come up much - yet - is text messaging.
Politico started texting key updates to a pilot group of its core users on Capitol Hill this summer and it seems to be paying off.
My favourite quote from my conversation with executive producer for Congress Zach Warmbrodt related to the “gut feeling” that helps editors decide when to send a text. “You know it when you see it – and when you see it, you have to send it.”
I wonder if texting will become as ubiquitous as email newsletters, which several years ago were being treated to countless think-pieces about the potential of the low-tech medium - and now really are everywhere.
Yes, push notifications already exist and can similarly get you to someone’s phone screen. But there’s something much more personal about actually being in someone’s inbox - and potentially getting a direct reply from them.
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🤖 The final report from our Future of Media Technology conference last month looks at the value of The Washington Post’s Ask the Post chatbot.
The questions asked by users in the chatbot help the Post discover angles the newsroom hadn’t actually considered yet, meaning it’s a useful two-way experience.
For consumers, it was described as a passive, but interactive and hyper-personalised, experience that’s safer than the likes of ChatGPT because it’s grounded in the Post’s own reporting.
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📊And it’s better news this month in our latest update on the top 50 news websites in the US.
A busy news month in September, which included the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has led to a lot more growth than we saw a month earlier.
The big winners in the top ten were NBC News, the BBC and CNN.
Among the wider ranking, AP News, Reuters and Politico also saw strong month-on-month growth while Substack’s rise continues.
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📈Top five on Press Gazette this week:
1) Google appears to prioritise global newsbrands over local ones for breaking news events
SEO expert explains why local news providers can “miss out” amid major news events.