AMA with Mattia Peretti of News Alchemists

In an era where journalism is fighting for relevance, trust, and sustainability, Mattia Peretti is quietly leading a hopeful rebellion. As the founder of News Alchemists and former head of JournalismAI at LSE, he’s helping reshape how journalism serves people, by learning from other industries and interrogating its deepest assumptions.

Join the conversation in the new LinkedIn Group here.

Here are 5 takeaways from our conversation that should resonate far beyond the newsroom:

1. The Real Crisis Is a Broken Relationship with the Audience

“The industry talks about news avoidance, but I don’t like that term. It blames the audience. I think it’s on us—we’re not offering something people find valuable enough to engage with.”

Mattia flips the dominant narrative. Rather than blaming audiences for disengagement, he reframes the issue as a product-market fit failure—highlighting how legacy mindsets erode trust and engagement. For anyone working in subscriptions, this challenges the assumption that more content or better targeting is the answer.

2. More Content ≠ More Value. Relevance, Not Volume, Wins

“The one thing the world doesn’t need is more content. In fact, the most successful organizations are those scaling down what they produce to make each experience more meaningful.”

This is a call to shift from volume metrics to value metrics. For subscription growth professionals focused on engagement and retention, Mattia underscores the importance of emotional clarity, relevance, and decluttering the experience to increase user satisfaction and loyalty.

3. Complicity, Not Pedagogy, Builds Trust

“Il Post isn’t a professor at the front of the class—it’s a peer, shoulder-to-shoulder with the audience, figuring things out together.”

This powerful metaphor highlights the shift from broadcast to collaboration. Successful subscription businesses aren’t just informing or entertaining—they’re building participatory, conversational relationships that feel deeply human and trustworthy.

4. Product Mindset Isn’t Optional—It’s Journalism’s Best Shot at Survival

“Journalism needs to become more porous. We need people from product, from design, from other industries to come in and help. And we need journalists to go out, learn, and come back changed.”

This is both a challenge and an invitation. Mattia argues journalism’s traditional insularity is holding it back, and true transformation will come from cross-pollination. It speaks directly to your audience’s value—product thinkers who can help reshape tired models with proven methods from outside.

5. Hope Is a Strategy—If We Redefine Value and Pace of Change

“News Alchemists isn’t about solving journalism’s problems—it’s about supporting the people who want to change. I’m working with the winners, so we can grow their numbers.”

Mattia ends on a note of strategic optimism. He’s betting on a mindset shift—from survival to intentional evolution. This is a rallying cry for people working on recurring revenue models: resilience is not just about cost-cutting, but about aligning purpose with audience value to unlock sustainable growth.