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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
US visa rules cap foreign journalists at 240 days | Boston Globe invests to boost subscriptions
Plus BBC hits one billion global visits in latest top 50 ranking for English-language news sites
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Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Tuesday, 11 August.
🗽 As the US celebrates 250 years of independence from the British crown this year it is imposing new visa restrictions on reporters from overseas.
From next month, foreign journalists will need to renew their visa applications every 240 days raising fears this will lead to self censorship.
There are also concerns that long delays on renewal applications could lead to reporters losing their right to work.
Luckily for the cause of American revolutionaries, there were no such I-visa restrictions in the years 1774 to 1776 when English journalist Thomas Paine was writing the pamphlets credited with turning public opinion against the colonial authorities.
🗞️ The local newspaper in the birthplace of the US revolution – The Boston Globe – is a profitable journalism success story, after nearly going out of business following the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent collapse in local print newspaper revenues in the UK and US.
We spoke to CEO Linda Henry about how it plans to take digital subscriptions into the next phase of growth by investing in deeper editorial coverage of local news, sport, politics and business.
It has grown to 313,000 digital subscribers with a consistent promotion offering six months for $1 (currently rising to $27.72 per month after the trial ends).
With such a generous free offer the focus is on getting more readers in the front door to sample what the Globe has to offer and then investing in sufficient content to ensure they stick around.
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🌍 And there is good news for the BBC which cemented its position as the most popular English language news website in the world in July 2026 with one billion website visits, per Similarweb, up 11% year on year.
It was one of only 12 sites in our global top 50 ranking to grow traffic year on year. Substack grew visits by 40% to 175 million and The Guardian was up 2% to 305 million.
Business Insider was one of the biggest fallers – down 45% year on year and 12% month on month to 42 million visits. New CEO of the title Christian Baesley told Press Gazette this month how growth of its non-website audience on newsletters and platforms like Youtube and LinkedIn is now a big commercial focus for the brand.
Ninth placed Dailymail.com was flat year on year and up 8% month on month with 234 million visits in July – a great result for a popular newsbrand in the current market.
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