This “Editors Pick” award singles out Stagwell CEO Mark Penn for his championing of the news business at a time when it is seemingly under attack from all sides. Or at least many sides, for reasons that have more to do with self-interest and personal pique rather than fairness, accuracy, balance and other standards that legitimate news platforms are typically held accountable too. 

Penn has argued, correctly, that a rigorous free press is critical to democracy, and that advertisers play a role in keeping legitimate news sources healthy. 

Penn and Stagwell launched the “Future Of News” initiative a year and a half ago and have continued to expand the effort through 2025.  

“At Stagwell,” Penn stated when the effort launched, “we believe a thriving news industry is not only the foundation of a healthy democracy, but also a critical platform for marketers and advertisers… Instead of feeding the vicious cycle of news demonetization that hurts quality journalism the most, advertisers should kickstart a virtuous cycle of investing in news that allows brands to reach valuable audiences and gives quality news content the financial stability it needs to thrive.” 

Early studies from the initiative found that brand safety standards used by marketers were too broad and were helping to “demonetize” the news business.  

In 2025 the company took several steps to put its money where its mouth is, including boosting its own ad spending investment in news programming by 22%.  

And in June it launched a private marketplace with partners including Newsweek, Nexstar, NPR, Ozone, The Washington Post and others. 

It also bought a 35% stake in Real Clear Holdings LLC, publisher of the RCP Poll Averages, news publication RealClearPolitics, and 12 other news and analysis sites. The company said that clients would benefit from RealClear’s audience, op-ed aggregation and polling capabilities, among other benefits.  

And The Future Of News initiative did more research last year, through its HarrisX subsidiary that found that the 80-plus million U.S. adults who follow the news ‘very closely’ — view brands more positively than less engaged audiences across seven key brand and reputation metrics, including purchase intent, favorability, likelihood to recommend, and trustworthiness.  

Also, among so-called “News Junkies,” the average purchase intent for 20 brand ads tested across technology, travel/hospitality, CPG, financial services, and automotive, was 66%— compared to 50% among the rest of the general population. 

The News Initiative also did a number of regional reports last year on news impact/brand safety, including ones for APAC, Canada and EMEA. 

The Future of News unit is hosting events at the upcoming World Economic Forum in January and SXSW in March.