About In The Lead
In The Lead is a newsletter about newsroom leadership, journalistic culture and public value in a time of AI, audience fragmentation, democratic uncertainty and continuous organisational change. Written by researcher and strategic advisor Karlijn Goossen, it explores how journalism can remain trustworthy, resilient, collaborative and meaningful — for both the people who make it and the people it serves — by taking audience needs, relationships and lived realities seriously.
Blending research, reflection and practical insight, the newsletter looks beyond headlines, tools and innovation trends to the deeper organisational, cultural and leadership questions shaping the future of journalism. It asks what newsrooms need in order to learn, adapt and collaborate across disciplines, and how strategy can be translated into everyday practice, routines and decisions.
Drawing on conversations across newsrooms, research, technology, education, product, audience work and public institutions, In The Lead connects ideas that too often remain separated. It explores leadership as practice, public value as a lived commitment, and journalism as part of a wider civic information ecosystem.
At its heart, the newsletter is about how journalism changes — and how people and organisations can navigate that change together with clarity, care and courage.
About Karlijn
Karlijn Goossen is a researcher, strategic advisor, lecturer and leadership coach working at the intersection of journalism, organisational culture and public value. She works with boards, executive teams and newsroom leaders on the strategic, cultural and leadership questions shaping the future of journalism — from AI, audience trust and news product change to organisational resilience, professional learning and public-interest innovation.
Until recently, Karlijn worked in Dutch public service media (NPO and NPO Radio 1), leading journalism strategy and contributing to the long-term development of public-interest journalism across radio, television, digital and podcasts. Alongside that role, she advised media organisations, journalism funds and professional networks on newsroom transformation, leadership development and sustainable change.
Her work is grounded in research on leadership-as-practice and focuses on how strategy, culture and public value are lived in everyday routines, relationships and decisions in newsrooms and media organisations. Karlijn is also a board member of Fonds BJP, co-founder of Huis voor de Journalistiek and initiator of the Dutch Journalism Festival.
Known for her thoughtful, evidence-based and dialogical approach, she connects research, strategy and practice across the wider civic information ecosystem.
Outside work, Karlijn is usually outdoors if she can be — walking, hiking, gravel cycling or running, preferably with good coffee somewhere nearby. She is almost always reading, has a soft spot for arthouse cinema, loves playing board games with her nephews and nieces, and is the proud wife of freelance journalist Beitske de Jong.