Most news organizations know they're losing young audiences. Few have real data on what actually brings them back. I do. Over the past year, Newsreel has been deployed in 200+ classrooms and libraries, with 41 student fellows running peer-to-peer news engagement programs across 25 universities including UNC, NYU, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, and Cambridge. Our month-one retention is 35%, which is 3-5x the news app industry average. A study of 277 Penn State students found 65% planned to keep using the platform after course requirements ended. In this workshop, I'll share the raw data behind what worked and what didn't, then participants will build their own audience strategy using the frameworks we developed. We'll work through three exercises: (1) mapping your current audience gap by analyzing who you're reaching vs. who you're missing, (2) designing an institutional distribution channel (schools, libraries, community orgs) that creates habitual use without paid acquisition, and (3) building a peer ambassador program modeled on our campus fellows playbook. This is not a panel about "reaching Gen Z." It is a working session where you leave with a concrete distribution plan built on real engagement data from real young readers.
