The year news and product teams actually work together

In 2026, news organizations will finally — finally — unlock the true value of product skill sets, thinking, and people in order to build products and experiences that truly and deeply connect to their audiences. With the ongoing disruption of generative AI and the “platform reset” of social media, search, and aggregators already underway, this will be the differentiator — and arguably the only way that news organizations of the next decade will survive.

Over the last decade, many modern news organizations adopted product as a fundamental part of their business and product management as a legitimate role and function. While smaller or newer organizations might only have one or a few dedicated product people, many news operations now have fully-fledged product teams. These teams vary in size, structure, remit, and overall maturity but are generally viewed as sitting at the intersection of news and business, with a relentless focus on understanding and meeting audiences’ needs through digital features, products, and experiences.

While it’s become an established and expected part of news organizations, there’s still a lack of clarity about what exactly “product” is, what they’re ultimately responsible for, and where it should reside within the organization. Product teams usually work closely with engineering and design partners which makes them the team to come to when things need to be developed and built on site or in apps. This has led to the understandable but incorrect assumption that product roles are purely technical. Or that product should only be tapped when something needs to be developed by an engineer.

In some newsrooms, there’s even a “power struggle” dynamic between news teams and product teams, which only hinders the effectiveness of both.

In The State of Product at Publishers report by WordPress and The Rebooting, the COO of Stat, Angus Macaulay, painted the picture that most organizations currently face: “There are essentially two product teams at a media company. One is the editorial team and the news they produce — and they don’t want to be called ‘product.’ But that is the product that people are paying for: the words on the page, not the page itself. So the newsroom comes first, and you as the product head come second.”

But this is a false and unproductive power struggle, as you can’t and shouldn’t separate the core of what we do — the journalism the newsroom produces — from how audiences engage with and experience it — what the product team creates. Yet, so many product teams operate in a silo, completely separate from the newsroom, or operate purely in a service function to the newsroom, taking requests for what to build. And newsrooms often feel like their needs aren’t being met by product teams, and that they have little visibility or understanding into what initiatives get prioritized and why.

This is what will hinder news organizations trying to find their footing in an industry facing constant disruption. In a world where good product experience is the expectation, no matter the industry, we’re doing ourselves a disservice by not ensuring better collaboration of these teams to make better experiences.

Conway’s Law says that organizations will design systems that copy their communication structure. In other words, structure dictates output. News organizations cannot expect to create intuitive, accessible, engaging, or innovative experiences or products that people will choose to support — whether via subscription, donation, or some other method — if we do not bring newsrooms and product closer together.

Fortunately, we’re beginning to see models that embrace this way of working all across the industry. From Zetland in Denmark and their working group model that intentionally disperses product throughout its org structure, to Svenska Dagbladet in Sweden and their “editorial growth hub” that brings together news, product, and several other functions into one organization. And they’re creating interesting, thoughtful, engaging, and downright cool news product experiences that are driving real interest and audience conversions as a result.

News organizations in 2026 and those that will survive the next decade will radically rethink their organizational structures with an eye towards uniting their core product teams — the newsroom creating the content and the product team creating the experiences around it. They will break apart traditional and legacy reporting structures within the newsroom, especially those that have stuck with us from the print era and may no longer be serving the right purpose. And they’ll have brave, bold leaders who understand the urgency of this need, and will take bigger, decisive steps towards building organizations that will meet this crucial moment.