Dak’s Take: The blessing and the curse of personalization in journalism

The news business has always chased the next big thing. From the printing press to smartphones, we’ve adapted our storytelling to fit each medium. But today’s challenge isn’t just technological – it’s existential. As personalization algorithms increasingly determine what stories reach which readers, we’re witnessing a more fundamental shift in how journalism functions in society.

It’s a shift that carries both tremendous promise and profound risk.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening: algorithms are the gatekeepers of information.

According to Pew Research, over half of U.S. adults now get news via social media, where content is filtered through highly personalized recommendation engines. Each user sees a unique mix of stories, creating what industry observers dubbed the “Daily Me” in the early 90s – a news experience explicitly tailored to individual interests and behaviors.

Personalization was a key topic in my chats at the NAB Show

At the 2025 NAB Show last month, personalization was part of every conversation. Industry leaders aren’t just predicting this trend, they’re actively building for it. In my meetings with executives, the consensus was clear: personalization is becoming central to their product strategies.

Ivan Verbesselt, chief product and marketing officer at Mediagenix, put it bluntly during our conversation, that personalization helps focus content.

“Tto make it for the right audience at the right time in the right place in the right format,” said Verbesselt, noting AI and machine learning will help get us to that point. 

The industry sees personalization as more than just a technological advancement, it’s also a future revenue driver. As Verbesselt noted, personalized content leads to personalized ad delivery, which ultimately means higher CPMs and better monetization opportunities.

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Similarly, in my discussion with Kathleen Barrett, Backlight’s CEO, she confirmed: “Content personalization is coming up a lot in the world of AI, obviously… leveraging the metadata storage, and then facilitating on-the-fly production at scale.” 

Journalism’s double-edged sword

This evolution offers real solutions to persistent industry problems. News avoidance, that growing tendency for audiences to actively turn away from an overwhelming news cycle, might be countered by feeds that deliver only what’s relevant to each reader.

For example, Yahoo News focuses on AI-driven customization with a custom news feed and “Key Takeaways” summaries inside their app. Their strategy recognizes that many consumers find the news landscape “crowded,” leading to avoidance altogether.

For publishers, personalization provides tools to boost engagement, retention and ultimately, revenue.

Dynamic paywalls adjust subscription offers based on reader behavior. Email newsletters adapt to reading preferences. Even content bundles can be tailored to different audience segments. These product reconfigurations have shown promising results, with many outlets reporting higher conversion rates and deeper audience relationships.

Some publishers are exploring even more creative applications: “choose your own adventure” news stories, AI voice assistants offering personalized audio briefings and format personalization that serves different versions of the same story based on reader profiles.

Harvard Business Review has discussed developing “hyper-personalization” that allows subscribers to create their own issues by selecting themes important to them.

But here’s where the industry needs to proceed with caution.

The hidden cost of customization

The same algorithms that can enhance reader experience also risk undermining journalism’s core social function. When everyone sees a different version of reality through their personalized news feeds, we lose the common ground necessary for democratic discourse.

The shared reference points that once allowed communities to operate from the same set of facts are eroding, replaced by countless micro-audiences consuming different slices of the information landscape.

And while academic research suggests true “filter bubbles” may be less prevalent than feared (at least in the United Kingdom), the polarizing effects are real for those who get caught in them.

When combined with engagement-driven recommendation systems that favor sensational content, personalization can become a breeding ground for misinformation. Just look at the AI slop that has invaded Facebook and other social media platforms.

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Of course, we’ve seen the consequences play out in recent years.

During election cycles and the COVID-19 pandemic, false stories often went viral on personalized feeds before fact-checkers could catch up. YouTube’s recommendation system has, at times, created paths from mainstream content to conspiracy theories through a chain of “up next” suggestions. Platforms have responded with tweaks to down-rank known falsehoods, but these fixes remain incomplete… especially as these platforms abandon fact-checking in favor of community notes.

So, where does personalization head?

What we’re seeing now is just the beginning. The conversations at NAB Show revealed how media companies are thinking beyond simple content recommendations.

Chris McMahon from Backlight discussed how their tools are leveraging AI to automate the creation of vertical video layouts, metadata enrichment, and even translation services — all elements of a more personalized content ecosystem.

More intriguingly, when I spoke with media executives about “personalization,” they weren’t just talking about serving different stories to different users. They’re anticipating a future where the content itself morphs based on viewer data.

Imagine not just personalized news selection, but personalized story presentation: the same news piece might appear with different headlines, different B-roll, or different framing, depending on the viewer’s profile. A weather report might emphasize different elements based on your activity patterns. A sports recap might focus more on the players you follow.

And yes, advertising will lead this charge.

The ability to insert personalized ads into unique content streams represents a holy grail for marketers — and a funding mechanism that could potentially sustain quality journalism, if handled responsibly.

So how do we navigate these choppy waters?

Smart newsrooms are developing models that balance algorithmic personalization with editorial judgment. Some maintain curated “front pages” while offering personalized recommendations elsewhere. Others are working on “context engines” that ensure even as users get tailored updates, they receive background pieces that help them see the bigger picture.

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Robin Kwong, product director at Yahoo News, describes the opportunity to build services that “give people back a sense of context and overview” in an age of personalized algorithms — essentially tools to navigate beyond the walled gardens of customized feeds.

“In the quest to remove friction from our everyday lives, we’ve designed and adopted digital products that narrow our field of vision and traded exploration for convenience,” noted Kwong.

We’re also seeing a counter-trend emerge: as personalization grows more pervasive, some audiences are deliberately seeking out more collective, editor-curated news experiences. This small revival of “finishable” products, think Sunday newspapers or daily news podcasts that everyone hears alike, suggests a hunger for shared narratives amid the algorithmic fragmentation.

The next few years will likely see media organizations refining their strategies with an eye toward both innovation and monetization.

Personalization isn’t going away — nor should it. When implemented thoughtfully, tailored news experiences can make journalism more relevant and sustainable in an era of information overload.

The challenge for our industry isn’t whether to embrace personalization, but how to harness its benefits while preserving journalism’s essential role in the newscreation and distribution process. Can we create personalized experiences that don’t sacrifice truth and context? Can we build recommendation systems that optimize for quality, not just engagement?

The news organizations that thrive will be those that view personalization not as an end in itself, but as a means to deliver on journalism’s core promise: helping people understand the world around them and their place in it.

After all, the best journalism has always been personal, it connects with readers on an individual level while simultaneously connecting them to something larger than themselves. If we can harness algorithmic tools in service of that mission rather than at its expense, personalization might just help save journalism rather than undermine it.

Dak DillonDak Dillon is the Editor in Chief of NewscastStudio, where he has been covering broadcast technology, engineering and design for over 15 years. With practical industry experience, Dak's broadcast work has earned a Promax Gold Award and multiple regional Emmy nominations.

A journalism graduate from the Missouri School of Journalism, Dak has also been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Foundation.