A couple of months ago, I heard a senior executive from The Sun speak about how they’ve upended their approach to journalism.
Print was hardly mentioned and the priority is now the moving image.
On the one level, it’s not surprising but for someone who grew up with the aggressive tactics of the print-first tabloid it’s nothing short of astounding.
“Video is at the heart of the story process,” Will Payne Head of Digital at The Sun said at the event. “It’s our primary asset.”
It’s a line that stuck with me and I’ve kept a weather eye on what they’ve been producing.
The Sun of twenty years ago was a print-first monster whose newsroom and executives were mired in the phone hacking scandal. It was the title still not bought on Merseyside after their coverage of Hillsborough.
Prompted by the change of direction, here’s what public sector comms and PR people can take from this change of approach.
They have been open on how they have used video to transform their newsroom and have made video hugely important as part of their strategy.
The hard numbers: print decline and online boom
In 2000, more than 3.6 million copies of The Sun were bought daily and the newspaper had declined to just over a million print sales when they pulled out of the ABC circulation audit in 2020.
In 2024, videos made by The Sun were seen by 1.7 billion people. That’s an astounding figure.
Here’s where they are coming from:
YouTube: 6 million subscribers
Facebook: 3.7 million followers
TikTok: 3.2 million followers
X: 2 million followers
Instagram: 500,000 followers
Strategy: Going to where the eyeballs are
Early newspapers were puzzled as to what to do with the internet. In 2025, this is not about driving traffic to their website.That’s a huge takeaway that the public sector can have for free.
Instead, The Sun wants to be in people’s timelines as opposed to be in news stands. This is about taking then news to people themselves.
This is absolutely a lesson to learn. Driving traffic as a tactic ended some years ago. Why? Because the algorithm suppresses posts with links. As I’ve said repeatedly, tell the story on the platform. If news titles like The Sun can get this, so can we all.
Style: Away from tabloid
The Sun is no longer tabloid-first. It wants to be vertical on someone’s timeline. To state the obvious for someone who bought newspapers in the 1980s, there is no page three.
The great skill of the printed Sun was skilful writing. The sharpness is now into editing and creating hooks. Again, this is a skill to learn from.
YouTube: specialised channels
The Sun is the largest news outlet on YouTube. You can see why they have taken this path. Views can be monetised. That’s not really an option for the public sector.
But what is an idea to learn from is that they don’t just have one channel they have several.
For example, there are 320,000 subscribers to the Sun Sport channel and 150,000 to the Sun Fabulous magazine. These sub-channels cater for different interests.This echoes the Daily Mail approach to WhatsApp. They don’t have one single channel there but instead have multiple special interest channels.
It makes sense. If you have one interest, you’re just not interested in other things. Many council YouTube channels, for example, run their live meetings as well as everything else. Who cares?
Instagram: The white hook box
The white box is the hook on the screen that pulls in viewers and The Sun are sharp at this.
In this case, it flags up the death of Brummie singer Ozzy Osbourne.
This is absolutely something that should be transferable to any organisation looking to make video content. It makes people stop scrolling and the best are a tease or an encouragement to watch more.
TikTok: Journos as podcasters
Go onto a video first platforms and you’ll often find teaser clips from radio programmes or podcasts. These can be 30-second clips with the juiciest soundbite. They work, too. A short clip with Stoke fan Nick Hancock on just how bad Kurt Wimmer was as a signing reeled me in to listen to an hour long podcast.
In the past, podcasters were happy to film themselves in their lockdown spare rooms. Now, it often looks as though they’re investing in a swanky studio. The Sun have taken this idea and run with it.
So, here’s Sun journalists talking as though they were on a podcast:
It’s an interesting idea that I can working for what was once called Fleet Street. The problem for the public sector is who do you put in front of the camera? Politicians often aren’t that great, to be honest. A museum demonstrator talking about the new exhibition? Fine. But I don’t think comms people are the right people.
Besides, kitting out a studio isn’t the right look for many organisations facing tough budgets.
Overall, we should absolutely be looking to see how news organisations are using the internet to talk to people.
I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS, ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER, ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.
Creative commons credit: Newsagents and Refreshments Kiosk, Keighley Station by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Thought provocation at its best Dan