Are you a journalist? Here’s why you might already be the product designer your users need
As a journalist, your skills in research, understanding complex systems, finding and translating real user needs, connecting issues to broader contexts, and verifying and processing information make you a natural fit for product design. Image generated in ChatGPT 4o
Some of the most gifted media product designers I've ever met are journalists. The problem (and the opportunity!) is that most of them don't know it.
We already know what hell looks like: USAID's 90-day funding suspension eliminates the grants and aid that most journalists and media organisations have built their work around. This crisis isn't just about finding new funding — it's about having a good, solid rethink around how you create value in an information ecosystem that has fundamentally shifted from supply to demand.
And why is this important? Here’s why: When you solve a specific problem for somebody by building them a product that is meaningfully better than their current alternatives, you have achieved product-market fit.
And the premise we’re going for in this thing I’m trying to say is this: product-market fit is what will build you viability — and revenue.
Especially in a situation where you can no longer afford to depend on funding from the U.S. government.
Forgive me if this sounds weird, but here we go: as a journalist, you’re uniquely positioned to thrive in this new landscape. Your skills in research, understanding complex systems, finding and translating real user needs, connecting issues to broader contexts, and verifying and processing information make you a natural fit for product design. Chances are you have more skills than people get in a typical UX education.
I’ll say this again: you already know how to build product-market fit. You might already be the product designer we all need.
But let’s take a look at some of the assumptions that weigh us down as an industry — and might affect how you think about value.
That content supply and creation is all you do. Your primary function is solving information problems, not just producing content. You’re more than your content. You have the skills to build for demand — information products and services that meet specific user needs.
That the article is your fundamental unit of value. Articles are just one format of delivery. Your value comes from the insight, knowledge, and understanding you provide — and you probably already know how to do that in multiple formats.
That information scarcity still exists in a world of infinite supply. Is it possible you make too much content? In an era of information abundance, your value lies in curating, verifying, contextualising, and making sense of the firehose around the needs of specific users and communities.
That there is such a thing as a General Audience. The notion of a singular, homogeneous "general audience" is a myth. We are all diverse individuals with particular needs and contexts — and our opportunity lies in understanding and obsessing about serving those needs
That audiences are monolithic masses rather than collections of very specific human needs. Audiences are not undifferentiated blocs, but intricate mosaics of distinct needs. Those needs, unlike the disillusioned condescension of some of our contemporaries, aren’t just TikTok dances and cat videos — they’re made up of stuff that (surprise, surprise) is not the exclusive domain of journalism, like human rights, the climate crisis, democracy, public welfare, rights, jobs, the diversity of speech and ideas. Our job is to understand and serve those specific needs, not cater to an illusory average.
That an audience is the only kind of user there is. Remember, an audience is only one kind of user. You serve many kinds of users — from researchers to policy wonks to government workers to NGO folks — because your work is potentially useful to them. Each has unique information requirements that you can understand and design for.
That user needs are only media needs. For a dude with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Journalists think about journalism; most user needs extend far beyond typical media offerings. To do meaningful user research, you want to ask about their lives and the issues they deal with — it’s not usually relevant to ask whether they prefer long-form journalism to podcasts or newsletters to scrollytelling. To truly serve our users, it will help you to think about what problems they face in their life and their work, and how you can translate those problems into potential information needs you can address with your work.
That journalism holds a monopoly on trust and verification. People already rely on many information products and services beyond journalism for trusted, verified knowledge. From academic research portals and industry databases to rigorously compiled statistics and indices and International standards organisations, users are accustomed to turning to a wide range of non-journalistic sources for credible, reliable information. It’s cool. Your opportunity lies not in claiming an exclusive hold on accountability, but in consistently bringing your skills in these areas to the specific problems our users face. By applying journalistic techniques to a broader range of information products, we can differentiate through the unique integrity and insight our approach provides.
That your formats are immutable: publications rather than services. Your formats must evolve to match user needs. The future lies in providing dynamic information services, not just static publications bound by legacy constraints.
That your skills are narrow: reporting rather than information architecture. Your true superpowers extend beyond the traditional reporter's toolkit. By developing capabilities in information architecture, product design, and service delivery, you can create richer value for users.
The reality is more complex: journalists already excel at identifying needs, verifying information, establishing trust, and delivering clear analysis under pressure. These are precisely the skills you need to build valuable information products — if you're willing to think beyond traditional formats.
This is the end of supply-driven media that we can no longer afford. The grant-dependent model was built on assumptions about information scarcity that no longer hold true. We've been creating content without examining whether it serves genuine user needs or solves real problems. The USAID funding suspension forces a reckoning with how we create and measure value.
The reckoning is this: The time has come to understand your users. The shift from mass audiences to specific users requires a long, hard focus on value creation. Your users aren't abstract demographics - they're individuals and organisations whose work or life improves through your expertise. These people are real people you likely already know. She’s that
policy official navigating her way through red-tape and complexity — and needs your guidance;
government worker who needs your verified intelligence;
community-builder looking for the contextual understanding only you have;
think-tank researcher who needs your structured data in a JSON file;
NGO executive who needs your expert analysis
What’s going on here? Niche is what’s going on here. Let’s say it again: niche isn’t about small. Niche is about specific. Industry Dive is one of my favourite examples of how beefy niche can get if you want it to: over ten years, they built 37 newsletters serving specific professional verticals, from automotive to waste management. Their $389 million acquisition wasn't about content volume — it was about their direct line to 37 distinct, dedicated communities of 13 million professionals with specific information needs. And here’s the telling bit: they were bought by Informa, the world's largest publicly-owned event, conference, and training business — who scored 37 potential massive event audiences — 37 niches — in one fell swoop.
The power of specificity is a big deal. The economics of what you do in media increasingly favours precision over scale. Just as subreddits thrive through deep engagement with particular interests, your work building information products can create more value by developing your existing domain expertise in specific sectors, building an intimate understanding of user contexts, creating information products that solve specific problems you’ve researched, charging premium value through specialisation, and differentiating by how deep, rather than how wide, you go. There’s a reason they’re called Industry Dive — each of their newsletters is called [Industry] Dive, so Automotive Dive, CFO Dive, Hotel Dive, Waste Dive…
Your opportunity as a journalist-turned-product builder lies well beyond content formats. The outdated notion that your journalism must manifest as articles or broadcasts limits your ability to serve user needs. Depending on what format your user needs their product in, your existing skills could potentially translate to building analysis and intelligence products; decision support tools; data services; training and professional development workshops; community spaces; research analysis and reports; and knowledge systems.
Jessica Lessin’s The Information illustrates this product evolution: beyond articles, they provide intelligence through organisational charts, contextual understanding through analyst calls, and community value through curated discussion spaces. A popular membership product at The Information is the right to comment on articles. What is the user buying? The right to participate in important conversations — a seat at the table.
This is a good time to start building your digital foundation. As a journalist, you already have many of the skills needed to build and test digital products. Now add muscle and get to work.
1. Get your own domain
Would you please, please, please just begin by buying yournamedotcom? The fact that so many information professionals don’t own their ownnamedotcom is baffling. Get in there.
Own your own platform. Build a simple website showcasing your expertise and problem-solving abilities. Don’t tell me what you do; tell me what you do for me, your potential user.
2. Make it useful
Demonstrate how you solve real problems for distinct user groups — mini case studies really help illustrate that strategic process. What was the problem? What solution did you come up with? How did you get there?
Provide concrete examples of your work's impact, drawing on journalism successes. Using endorsements and quotes gives your user social proof — and tells her how you work with other people
Clearly list the specific information products and services you offer. If you don’t have a menu, I don’t know what to buy
Build a detailed About page. If I don’t know who you are, I won’t trust you, or buy from you, or fund you — or hire you
Articulate your mission. Tell me why you do what you do. Your why is vital, because it tells your users and potential customers about your theory of change, your point of view, and the principles that guide your work.
Tell me how to get in touch. A good contact page is a rare and beautiful thing.
3. Create multiple income streams by testing assumptions and appetites
Use your specialised knowledge to testing user appetites for a premium subscription
Offer expert consulting services based on your deep domain understanding of a niche
Test your users’ interest around a simple event. This could be a simple line at the end of your newsletter that says “I’m building a small coffee meetup to discuss [insert a super-specific deep dive subject you know your subscribers are nerdy about] every Wednesday morning at [venue of your choice] for [price per head where you’ve calculated the price of venue, coffees, and two kinds of sandwiches]. Interested? Reply with a confirmation.” If you hit the number of confirmations that mean you won’t lose money, well, congratulations — you’ve just built your first event. Everything else is obsessive iteration.
Package your research and analysis into valuable industry reports — and test need for this by building a quick prototype report around an underserved niche that you know your policy contact in The Hague loves and asking them where it needs to get for them to say the magic words: “Shut up and take my money”
Start building
So you’re beginning the journey from journalist to product builder. But don’t worry: Your journalism training has arguably already built deeper tools to understand your users’ needs than most UX design courses ever achieve. Welcome to some of your skills, friend.
Information architecture
You know how to map complex systems and power structures — a giant skill in product design
Your interviewing abilities are great training to find and translate users' unstated needs and motivations
Your abilities to synthesise information can transform messy anecdotes and transcripts into clear narratives and intuitive user flows
Your verification rigour and training protects against false assumptions that could derail your business
Product development questions to ask yourself
What if your story structure becomes intuitive user experience design?
What if your source verification becomes rigorous user testing?
What if your experience around editorial judgment and pitching stories is the best training for building great project proposals?
What if your understanding of publishing cadence translates to a solid product roadmaps?
Research
You know how to probe beyond surface-level user statements to understand core motivations
You know how to discover not just individual needs, but the broader societal contexts they come from
You already question assumptions and verify claims by habit rather than take them at face value
You get how to find patterns and meaning in complex information
You translate specialist knowledge for specific target audiences
The core mission stays the same: uncovering truth, establishing trust, and delivering value. But you bring something extra to the table as a journalist: the ability to see how individual needs connect to larger systems. This makes you uniquely qualified to build products that don't just serve surface issues, but fundamentally understand the landscape of human needs.
And so the product development process begins. Once you've found a problem to solve, approach it like you would any journalistic endeavour.
1. Learn about your users
Research is your friend.
Who exactly needs this problem solved, and why?
What deeper issues make this problem hard to resolve?
How do people currently cope with this issue? What solutions are they already using?
What outcomes would tangibly improve their situation?
2. Build a simple prototype solution
File that rough draft.
Create a very rough (but usable) minimum viable product, or MVP, that addresses that core user problem you researched
Go forth and test it boldly it with a small control group of users — their feedback is essential raw reporting
Listen closely, identify critical, incremental improvements, make changes
Iterate. Refine your product like you'd hone any story based on new information
3. Test and ship
Now it’s time to get your product in front of real users to see how it performs in the wild. Your user is your editor
Monitor usage patterns to see what's resonating
Check your assumptions in a continuous cycle — much as you would in your life as a reporter
Continually and obsessively improve your product like you'd revisit and reinvestigate an evolving story
This process should feel like familiar territory, right? You identify an issue, confirm its importance, gather facts, stress-test your conclusions, and publish. Then you keep processing, improving, uncovering more information, and updating what you have – you’re working the story to perfect the outcome.
The USAID funding suspension is forcing change. It’s already profoundly cataclysmic. The answer isn’t to retire journalism. But you will succeed in your journalism by pivoting into the work you've always done because that work — understanding your users’ needs, verifying facts, providing insight and analysis — is what product design requires at its core. And it’s what your user’s need.
You're already a product designer — even if you don't know it yet. Start small, but start now. We need you now more than ever before.