High Value Publishing

Eric Shanfelt and Jez Walters dig into the publishing news that mattered in May 2026, with a recurring theme tying most of the stories together: unique, authentic, non-commodity content wins. They cover the case for labeling AI content, how to become a Google Preferred Source, the newsprint supply squeeze, where AI is actually impacting publisher operations, Diario Vivo's live journalism events, Danny Sullivan's take on GEO vs. SEO, Stern's ground-up content reset, The Times' "fewer, better stories" growth strategy, and Anijam.ai as the AI tool of the month.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode are available on the website at https://nearviewmedia.com/

Eric Shanfelt and Jez Walters cover the latest news and developments affecting media companies and publishers. This month's topics include:

• AI missteps at major newsrooms — The New York Times, Ars Technica, and one of the Netherlands' most prominent news brands all made headlines recently for AI-related editorial failures. Eric and Jez discuss what went wrong and what practical guardrails publishers should have in place.
• Using AI to research your advertisers — Time magazine built an AI visibility tool to analyze how brands appear across generative AI platforms, then used those insights to sell sponsored content. Eric breaks down how any publisher can do the same with existing tools.
• Shipstead's open-source video tool — The European publishing house open-sourced VideoFi on GitHub, a tool that automatically converts text articles into short-form videos. Jez walks through how it works and why short-form video matters for audience growth.
• Dynamic pricing at the Washington Post — The Post is experimenting with dynamic subscription pricing, and not everyone thinks it's a good idea. Eric shares why industry voices like Sean Griffey and Rafat Ali are pushing back, and how it ties into the broader conversation around reader trust.
• DPG Media's free student subscriptions — The large Dutch publisher opened its entire portfolio of titles to students at no cost, signing up 93,000 subscribers in a week. Jez, who is currently reporting on this story, explains the strategy and what DPG is learning from the data.
• Reddit Pro opens to all publishers — Reddit's pro tools are now free and available to publishers, with features like RSS posting, AI community targeting, and analytics. Eric and Jez discuss how to actually get started and why most publishers don't yet have a Reddit strategy.

All links mentioned in this episode are available at nearviewmedia.com.

Eric Shanfelt and Jez Walters are back for the March edition of What's New in Publishing, the monthly roundup of the biggest stories in digital media for magazine and news publishers.

In this episode:

Google's alarming new patent—It's been granted, and it could allow Google to replace your publisher pages with AI-generated versions. Should you panic? Eric and Jez break it down.

Meta AI Summaries on Facebook—AI-generated answers are now sitting right below posts. Facebook users never have to even read the post, let alone click through to your site.

SPUR Coalition—A new international AI defense coalition backed by the FT, The Guardian, The Telegraph, BBC, and Sky News wants to protect publishers from AI scraping and unauthorized use of content. Publishers of all sizes can join free for now.

Condé Nast's search traffic collapse, but niche publishers tell a different story—The big names are screaming that AI is killing traffic, but Eric shares real data showing some publishers have more than doubled their search traffic this year. The difference? It depends on what kind of publisher you are.

What actually happens when you block AI bots? One publisher blocked all generative AI crawlers in September. The result? Search traffic actually went up.

Ars Technica fires a reporter over AI-fabricated quotes—A cautionary tale about using AI to surface source material without verifying it. What every editorial team needs to put in place now.

Two brilliant subscription tactics—The Guardian's hard paywall on older archived content drives serious conversions with no SEO impact. The Information locks its AI and search tools behind a paywall. Eric explains why combining these strategies is powerful.

Mumsnet monetizes 6.5 billion words of forum data—How they're using AI to generate advertiser insights from 20 years of community discussions and what publishers without big forums can learn from it.

Email newsletters in 2026—A breakdown of Dan Oshinsky's must-read piece on strategies for email newsletters.

Links

• Google patent story: https://searchengineland.com/google-patent-hints-searchers-will-land-on-ai-generated-pages-and-not-web-pages-470499
• SPUR Coalition: https://www.spurcoalition.org/
• Condé Nast/search traffic: https://ppc.land/conde-nast-ceo-calls-google-ai-a-death-blow-as-search-traffic-collapses/
• Google on skipping AI overviews: https://ppc.land/google-says-letting-publishers-skip-ai-overviews-is-a-huge-engineering-challenge/
• Blocking AI bots: https://nearviewmedia.com/block-ai-bots/
• Ars Technica/AI quotes: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ars-technica-fires-reporter-ai-quotes
• Archived content paywall strategy: https://email.poool.tech/the-guardians-3.1m-end-of-year-campaign
• The Information: https://www.theinformation.com/
• Mumsnet/AI forum insights: https://voices.media/why-parenting-forum-mumsnet-is-the-perfect-publisher-use-case-for-ai/
• Inbox Collective (Dan Oshinsky): https://inboxcollective.com/what-i-learned-about-newsletters-in-2025/

As a media company, if you've ever felt that Google Analytics leaves you wanting more, this episode is for you.

This week, I'm joined by Michael Henry from Marfeel for a hands-on demo of their publisher-centric media intelligence platform.

This is NOT a sponsored or paid demo. I requested this because several of my clients already use Marfeel and I've been impressed by it. I've called it "Google Analytics on steroids," but that's probably an understatement.

In this demo, we walk through Marfeel's Compass analytics platform and how it surpasses GA4's capabilities: from truly identifying traffic sources to breaking down content usage by visitor type, and seeing which topics, authors, traffic sources drive revenue, email signups and subscriptions.

We also cover Marfeel Amplify, a fully AI-enabled, built-in social distribution tool and Marfeel Monitoring which lets you track trending topics down to the city level.

Check out my demo of Marfeel, and if want to try it for yourself, feel free to reach out to Michael Henry directly at [email protected]. He's set up several demos for my clients using their own data.

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

Eric Shanfelt shows media companies how to use programmatic advertising on owned and operated media. He focuses on the practical business decisions behind filling unsold inventory on your site and in email newsletters, while protecting user experience, staying on the right side of compliance, and having an actual impact on your business.

Topics covered:

• Owned and operated vs non-owned programmatic advertising
• When programmatic backfill is worth using
• Why B2B sites often have a more difficult time with programmatic backfill
• Different types of programmatic backfill
• Programmatic in email newsletters
• Overlay ad formats and user experience considerations
• Affiliate links and how to stay compliant legally and with SEO

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

In this week’s High Value Publishing session, Eric Shanfelt and Jez Walters break down the biggest digital media issues publishers should pay attention to right now, and what to do about them.

They cover a major Google Discover update, why transparency matters more than ever, and how AI is reshaping on-site engagement and search behavior.

Topics covered:

• What the Feb 2026 Google Discover update targets
• Why “show your sources” is becoming a ranking and trust advantage
• How spammy content is impacting Discover quality
• Why paid subscribers should get an ad-free experience
• What Taboola’s “Deeper Dive” means for conversational, on-site search
• Why publishers need a real video strategy (not just articles on social)

Links and resources:

• Next Gen News: https://www.next-gen-news.com/
• Google Discover documentation: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-discover
• Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console
• Collaboration for publishers (James Breiner): https://jamesbreiner.substack.com/p/youre-not-alone-find-a-partner-and
• Digiday on AI rewriting publisher sites: https://digiday.com/media/bold-call-ai-will-rewrite-publishers-websites-in-2026/
• Marfeel community thread on Discover shift: https://community.marfeel.com/t/google-discover-s-shift-to-ai-youtube-and-x-what-publishers-are-losing/131424
• Simon Owens on subscriber experience: https://simonowens.substack.com/i/187043016/why-does-business-insider-hate-its-subscribers-so-much
• Taboola Deeper Dive: https://discover.taboola.com/deeperdive-ai/
• Direqt: https://www.direqt.ai/
• A Media Operator on the data + subscription + events model: https://www.amediaoperator.com/analysis/data-subscription-events-the-media-model-driving-ma/

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

Eric Shanfelt joins the Local Media Association to take an in-depth look at whether publishers should block AI bots from their websites and, if so, how to do it. He explains the tradeoffs between AI visibility and website traffic, then walks through simple, real-world defenses you can implement without overcomplicating your stack.

You will learn:

• Traffic vs visibility: which matters more right now
• How to use robots.txt (and what not to block)
• How a firewall service like Cloudflare or Amazon Web Services can help
• Why local publishers should consider blocking international traffic
• The “back door” way AI bots can still index your sites.

We’d like to extend a huge thanks to the Local Media Association for hosting this session and for the work they do every day to support local publishers. Learn more and please consider joining LMA at https://www.localmedia.org/ 

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

In this week’s High Value Publishing session, Eric Shanfelt breaks down a common problem that costs publishers renewals and credibility with advertisers: you are driving traffic, but your advertiser’s Google Analytics is not giving you credit for it.

Eric explains where “hidden traffic” shows up (often as Direct/None, generic email platform sources, or social referrals) and shares a simple system you can use to make sure clicks from ads, newsletters, dedicated emails, sponsored content, and social campaigns are properly attributed to your publication.

You will learn:

• Why your traffic shows up as Direct, Email, or “missing”
• A simple UTM setup that makes attribution clear
• Source and medium naming that stays consistent
• What “normal” tracking gaps look like (and why numbers will not match)
• How to handle advertiser-provided UTMs without creating reporting messes

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

In this High Value Publishing session, Eric Shanfelt is joined by Jez Walters of What's New in Publishing to unpack what the latest AI and distribution shifts actually mean for magazine and news publishers.

The conversation gets practical fast:

- How much traffic are publishers really seeing from ChatGPT?
- Is it worth optimizing your content for AI?
- Is Facebook going to start charging for link posts?
- What is changing inside Google Discover.
- A cautionary tale about a large paywall vendor causing big problems for a major publication.
- And more ...

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/

In this kickoff episode for 2026, Eric Shanfelt runs an “ask me anything” session focused on real-world problems publishers are dealing with right now, including ad strategy, performance, analytics, and the growing impact of bots and AI on measurement.

You will hear practical guidance on whether you should rotate or refresh ads, when AMP still matters (and when it does not), why email click data can be distorted by security bots, and how to think about AI crawlers and AI-driven discovery without losing control of your content. The episode wraps with a clear walkthrough of Core Web Vitals and what typically causes publishers to fail, especially cumulative layout shift from ad rendering.

Resource mentioned:
Google PageSpeed Insights: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

Key topics covered:

• Rotating and refreshing ads: why “more impressions” can create advertiser trust issues and hurt CTR
• AMP today: where it still shows up for some publishers, especially in Google News, and what to do if you do not have it
• Email measurement: how security bots can trigger false clicks and how to interpret click performance
• AI and publishers: indexing, sponsored content considerations, and what “value” looks like from AI surfaces
• GA4 basics that trip up dashboards: active users vs engaged users vs new users
• Core Web Vitals: what they measure, why they matter, and how to reduce cumulative layout shift by reserving fixed ad space

Learn more at https://nearviewmedia.com/