Millie Tran

Editorial Coordinator

Millie Tran was the editorial coordinator of the American Press Institute from May 2013 to January 2015.

Previously, she was the multimedia coordinator at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she wrote, edited and produced a weekly podcast. Prior to that, she helped launched launched National Journal’s Membership program as a marketing and design associate. She is also a graduate of the Atlantic Media fellowship program.

Millie’s skills and backgrounds are diverse — with experience on both the editorial and business side of media, as well as the for-profit and non-profit world. She likes to run toward wicked problems, connect the dots, and find the story.

A graduate of UCLA, she served as a tech columnist, opinion editor, and multimedia producer of the Daily Bruin — culminating in a first place award from the Associated Collegiate Press for a multimedia news feature. While there, she also wrote her thesis on cyber warfare and taught a seminar on the same subject.

By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

Appendix: What specific publishers, brands and analysts are doing with sponsored content

We asked participants in our Thought Leader Summit on sponsored content to give us some specific information via a survey. Here were their responses: Publishers using sponsored content Forbes Mark Howard, chief revenue officer: Q: What does your organization offer in terms of sponsored content / native advertising / content marketing? What is the content […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

Appendix: Participant list and related readings from the sponsored content summit

Related reading We recommend the following resources and articles that were based on or closely related to our sponsored content summit discussion. Defining and mapping the native advertising landscape This report by Altimeter analyst Rebecca Lieb, one of our summit participants, is an efficient and insightful summary of what native advertising is, who the stakeholders […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

Understanding the rise of sponsored content

In recent years news publishers have grappled with an uncomfortable realization: The traditional revenue streams of display advertising and reader subscriptions may not be sufficient to support them in a digital age. Digital display ads command unimpressive rates and engagement, with clickthroughs measured in the tenths of percentage points. Digital subscriptions have recently helped some […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

Why sponsored content is promising for news organizations

The potential for native advertising is enormous. For some publishers it’s already more than just potential — BuzzFeed draws all of its revenue from the model; and more than 50 percent of the Atlantic’s digital revenue is tied to native campaigns. From the conversations at our summit we identified a few underlying reasons. 1. It […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

The definition of ‘sponsored content’

Sponsored content / native advertising appears in many ways. There is no single form, but rather a continuum from banner ads to social media content to large microsites with articles and videos. The fragmented, inconsistent approaches are actually a feature, not a bug — “native” advertising is native to the specific publication or platform it […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

The four business models of sponsored content

There are four distinct models that we’ve seen so far, each with varying levels of involvement from the publisher and brand: Underwriting model: The brand sponsors content attached to normal reporting, or something that the publisher was creating anyway. This model preserves the most editorial independence. The brand is simply paying to have its name […]
By Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran

Managing risks, maintaining standards and ethics in sponsored content

The resounding consensus we heard from summit participants was that upholding the publisher’s own brand and integrity, and thereby its readers trust, is an important principle. These brands seeking sponsored content partners are coming to publishers not only for their audience size but for their trust and integrity, says Rebecca Davis of Ogilvy. The brands […]
By Millie Tran

Measuring the impact of journalism: 10 questions with Charles Lewis and Hilary Niles

What is the impact of journalism, and how can it be measured beyond audience reach and website traffic? Those questions are tackled by Charles Lewis, executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication, and Hilary Niles, a graduate assistant at Investigative Reporters & Editors, co-authors of a new report