Dayan Candappa: A Seasoned Thought Leader, Setting New Relams in the Publishing Arena with Newsweek

Exploring the journey is more interesting than the final destination, as is often said. We learn about ourselves along the journey, follow our hearts, and understand how to make our vision a reality. Here is the incredible story of a career journalist and media executive who has transformed numerous businesses and teams of the publishing industry in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States while also building award-winning editorial teams.

Dayan Caneppa, Chief Strategy Officer of Newsweek, has been instrumental in transforming the venerable print publication into a digital powerhouse. Candappa began his international career as a reporter covering the civil war in his native Sri Lanka for Reuters. During his time in New York, London, Singapore, Dubai, and Sri Lanka, he covered big topics on six continents, including wars, natural catastrophes, markets, financial crises, and diplomacy.

Dayan developed outstanding teams, and they have been recognized with a dozen journalism awards, including the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for print media awarded to Reuters. Inc. Magazine found his profile to be perfectly in tune with the tone of this special edition. He revealed some unresolved aspects of his inspiring journey as well as his successful endeavor as we had the chance to converse with him.

The Premier News Magazine: At a Glance

Newsweek is a renowned news publication and website that was established in New York in 1933 and has been providing readers with top-notch journalism for more than 90 years. It is famous for providing the most recent information, in-depth analysis, and viewpoints on global issues, business, technology, culture, and politics. Newsweek provides weekly English print editions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, in addition to editions in Japanese, Polish, Serbian, and Spanish. It also has an online and mobile presence.

The renowned media company has increased its monthly unique impressions from seven million in 2016, when the present management took over, to more than 100 million in 2019, worldwide.

Dayan helped in creating Newsweek Media Group and became part of the endeavor as Chief Content Officer, overseeing 250 journalists across 12 websites across three continents. After a 16-year tenure at Reuters, where he oversaw editorial operations in Asia and the Americas and guided that news organization to a number of journalism honors, including its first Pulitzer Prize, he joined Newsweek.

Dayan’s Significant Role at Newsweek: “Putting Data at the Heart of the Newsroom”

Dayan began working for Newsweek in 2016 when IBT Media owned the publication. He helped to create the podcast “The Debate” and opinion pages, as well as “Newsweek Next,” which focuses on the magazine’s rich history of curation and analytical reporting on disruptive technologies, in collaboration with Newsweek’s editors. These endeavors marked the magazine’s first new franchise in at least ten years.

As head of strategy for Newsweek, Dayan has been aggressively moving the news organization into a “Digital First” strategy, which puts data at the heart of the newsroom. The idea is to generate content in ways and formats that readers want.

To that end, Dayan’s group is charged with strategizing how Newsweek can maximize and monetize that content from a client, advertiser, or sponsor standpoint.

For instance, Newsweek offers rankings of goods, services, and businesses that serve as consumer decision-making aids. Its rankings are completely data-driven and reviewed by editors. Companies must pay a fee in order to use the rankings in their marketing materials. This revenue is anticipated to nearly double this year after increasing by nearly 20 times between 2018 and 2022. Additionally, Dayan’s team tries to serve as a catalyst, bringing the organization’s commercial strategy, content strategy, and platform strategy together. They’ll take the organization into account and create plans to expand revenue streams beyond conventional advertising and marketing initiatives.

For example, as the news platform moves to an online structure, Dayan’s group is increasingly centering content in “hubs,” which act as repositories for that content. It develops strategies to maximize that format in ways that pay off for clients, partners, and readers.

The rapid audience and revenue growth that resulted helped the CEO spin off Newsweek as an independent company for the first time in nearly 60 years.

Primary Obstacles Along the Way

This year, Newsweek is marking its 90th anniversary, making it a well-known brand. But in many ways, it’s also a start-up. It is based on a time-honored, conventional editorial strategy. However, the media organization has made a concerted effort to rethink, reform, update, and digitize all it does since Dev Pragad became President and CEO in 2016. And that is creating a dynamic culture that is prepared to take risks, learn from errors, and solve problems.

It was obvious that a significant restructuring was needed in terms of costs, content strategy, and personnel when the current management team took over. It was a really difficult period for the journalists at Newsweek because of this.

Many people opted not to change. However, according to the current newsroom executives, there was no need to choose between constructing a successful business or doing good journalism. It could do both, and today it’s doing exactly that.

Moving Forward: A Look Towards the Future

According to Dayan, “Machines have already started to take on small, routine tasks with generative AI,” and that’s just the beginning. One reality, however, remains. It will take human journalists to obtain that news and report the finest stories as long as individuals hold and control the most valuable information, access, and insights. Likewise, newsrooms will change as technology does. Good journalists will concentrate on producing better work. Today’s Newsweek is like a teenager going through a time of rapid and occasionally uneven growth. However, it requires a lot of effort and is occasionally painful and unpleasant. So, yes, there are challenges within the business, but nothing that time, practice, and maturity won’t sort out.

“Newsweek today is a “legacy start-up,” to quote Nancy Cooper, global editor in chief. It’s 90 years old and has the influence and responsibility that come from being a respected legacy brand. But its culture, its excitement, and, yes, its problems, are those of a start-up”, said Dayan.