Listening to the needs of the community. At the outset, the team started by engaging with both readers and non-readers through neighborhood conversations in Lisbon to find out what their concerns were, what they needed. The goal was to understand the city's issues without imposing the team’s views. Since it was during COVID, much of the engagement was through social media, with a focus on Facebook neighborhood groups. The Mensagem team clarified that their journalism covers policy, not politics, and aim to represent people’s needs rather than political agendas. As times grew more polarized, it became challenging to maintain a neutral, balanced perspective. Despite criticism, particularly from younger, more activist groups, the team remained committed to listening and providing insights that surprise the community – “things they don’t know they need. It is hard sometimes doing all this listening, but if I were to start over, I’d do it the same way,” says Catarina.

 

Two layers of work: social media & website. The newsroom is dependent on Instagram and TikTok to reach young readers. In order to manage this work, Catarina describes it as having two layers of work. First the article and any accompanying video is produced. These are then repurposed for social media (Instagram and TikTok mainly, as for other social networks, you are just publishing links). Normally, the social media stories are published a couple of days after the article publication on the website.

 

Monetisation: Grants, sponsorships and soon, membership. Mensagem’s funding is made up of a number of parts. It is possible to sponsor the publication as a private person, and they do get some funding this way, but it’s not something the team has been working to promote. The plan is to set up a proper membership programme in 2026. The team also applies for grants and funding – which is easier for scoped projects like the neighbourhood popup newsrooms than for the journalism itself. “One of our challenges is how we fund the core of the business – our journalism. This is what we ultimately look for; funding for the stories we do, the journalism that resonates with our readers.” The projects Mensagem de Lisboa are running, they often get sponsorships for, and for next year there’s a plan for a big event which will also be sponsored. The monthly editions events are not yet generating any revenue, as the community theatre where they are held, don’t allow Mensagem to charge for tickets.
In terms of B2B, Mensagem also does a bit of work in terms of editorial production, like producing videos for Portuguese institutions. As for advertising, this is not part of the plan. “We’d need to invest in order to generate money from advertising. We tried, but you really need a person to do dedicated work on this, because we are in the capital city of the country, the big companies here are national companies, and you have to build up a relationship with them.”

 

KPIs – engagement is key. With so much of the work being project based, Mensagem only partly relies on pageviews as a KPI, though it’s something the team is aware of and there’s a monthly report on it. Another important KPI is engagement on social media. “I realise this is not very popular – that many people in the media are turning away from social networks because of how the platforms act. But I think this is much more a problem for us in the media bubble, than for people on the street – and we use social media to be there with them.”

Catarina explains that the team thinks a lot about the balance, in what they cover and how it’s received by readers. “If an article is very much read because it is polemic, it's good for us, of course it is. But we curb our enthusiasm about it. It's important to have an article that's read by many people, but it is also important to have an article that creates an action in the people or that transforms the life of a person. I know that normally business people like to, even in media, have a structured way of approaching this. But what we do is ask the question – what do we do with this article? Do we change a life? Do we reach many readers? Are our stakeholders curious about this article? Are the politicians aware of this problem? We want every article to do something.”