*Dr. Maxwell Amuchie, Publisher and CEO of Sundiata Post Media Limited, at the training session of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers 10th Annual Conference, in Lagos, opines African newsrooms must quickly transition to strategic knowledge creation, to survive the disruption of the fast-coming zero-click era
Alexander Davis | ConsumerConnect
Newsrooms, especially in Africa, must quickly transition to strategic knowledge creation, to survive the disruption from the fast-coming zero-click era.
Dr. Maxwell Amuchie, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Sundiata Post Media Limited, said this during the training session, Day-One of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) Annual Conference, Wednesday, October 7, 2026, in Ikeja, Lagos State.
Amuchie stated though the mainstream media would remain relevant, media houses must become dynamic and adaptive to change, to survive the emerging trends and threats in the industry.
As a theorist and lead researcher at Sundiata Post Intelligence Unit (SPIU), in Abuja, he said newsrooms would continue to report, publish, and distribute, but they must also conduct relevant research.
His presentation is titled, “The Sundiata Post Model: Building The African Newsroom For The Long Term”.
“It (newsroom) must analyse, it must develop knowledge, it must preserve knowledge, it must create intellectual capital, and it must build institutional assets that become more valuable over time,” he stated.
Amuchie traced the evolution of media consumption and marketing, showing how digital journalism disrupted hard copy news, how social media, and more recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) are disrupting online journalism as well.
He said AI had made it possible for someone to see all your work without going to your site.
“So, what do we do to retain value as publishers and media content experts?
“What will advertisers use to assess you and give you a business? How do you create value to be relevant?”
The presenter said technology would continue to evolve, but mainstream media’s mission (which is publishing) will remain a permanent feature.
He emphasised that analysis is the key. “Explain the convergence of forces. Create frameworks to do your work. It may soon not matter whether anybody comes to your Web site,” he stressed.
He gave what he called seven pillars of the zero-click era survival but said they are interlinked. He called them assets, which he named as trust, authority, knowledge, intellectual capital, institutional memory, and original research.
Others include proprietary frameworks, archives, relationships, and reputation, all aimed at getting people to your Web site.
The essence, he said, is that people could read you without clicking to your website, and it is visiting one’s website that attracts adverts.
Amuchie sought to teach what publishers and mediapreneurs needed to do to attract revenue without relying on visits and clicks to their Web sites.
The expert referred the online publishers to a research report 2025, published April 2026 by the ‘SquirrelPR RANKED Report’ which he said showed a sharp decline in audience traffic across Nigeria’s digital media ecosystem.
He said the decline was reported at 26.2 percent — from over a billion visits to approximately 769 million visits.
The solution, he counseled is that the newsroom must evolve from being primarily a content-production organisation into a knowledge-producing institution.
“This does not mean abandoning journalism,” Amuchie added.
Earlier in his welcome address to the large gathering of members, Mr. Danlami Nmodu (mni), President of GOCOP, said the training sessions held on Day One of this year’s conference were designed to inspire members to recognise the potential they have in the industry.
Nmodu said GOCOP, which already had highly respected intellectuals and successful editors could still produce nationally and globally recognised personalities, such as professors, CEOs, even presidents.
“We have latent qualities that can move the society,” he opined.
The President of GOCOP also advised members to begin to consider specialisation in order for their publications to be recognised as leading lights in various sectors as well as further project GOCOP.
He paid glowing tribute to late Mr. Dotun Oladipo, a former President of GOCOP and Founder of the Eagle Online.
He described the late publisher as a strong pillar of GOCOP’s and friend to all.
Members had earlier observed a moment-of- silence in his honour.
The 10th GOCOP Annual Conference will continue tomorrow, Thursday, October 8, 2026.