Clicks are easy to count. What people actually need is much harder to see.

A story can perform well and still leave a newsroom guessing. Did people find it useful? What were they trying to understand? Why did they stay, leave or ignore it altogether?

Khalil helps newsrooms answer those questions. His work brings together audience development, user needs and AI, with one aim: helping journalism understand the people it is supposed to serve.

In this AImpactful conversation, Branislava Lovre speaks with Khalil A. Cassimally about what audience connection looks like beyond reach and engagement figures.

They discuss the User Needs Model and what changes when a newsroom stops asking only what it wants to publish and starts asking what people need from it. Khalil explains how that shift can bring more clarity to editorial decisio ...