They could spin up a Mastodon instance, but given how lousy their UK editorial department is with TERFs, it would be justifiably blocked for transphobia.
I really enjoy quite a bit of the Guardians coverage. Their staff editorial department is often infuriating to the point I often wonder if they actually work for a different news agency.
Their US and Australian divisions are solid. The UK one varies, and has some decent people, but also has a persistent infestation of TERF/SWERFs. A few high-profile ones have left after their comments became irreconcilable with the paper’s ostensibly liberal/progressive line, but you still get regular Observer opinion columns about pronoun-mongers sexualising our children or other scare campaigns. There’s a rumour that the editor, Kath Viner, is herself a TERF and personally protecting them, though I haven’t seen any evidence one way or the other.
I really wish running your own mastodon was as accepted as running your own email server. There'll be no "blue check mark" problem if your company runs the server and only provides accounts to employees.
There's a real argument for a Mastodon use case for news organizations, governments, and colleges.
If they're just seeking engagement, then they have to wait for the platform to grow. But this isn't about that.
Many news organizations already have comment sections on their website, and they want to push out information on breaking news as quickly as possible. They need a platform to do those things. So, a lot of them use Facebook for embedded comments on the page and Xitter to breaking news. The thing is that they could use mastodon for both, and run their own instance, which would give them total control and not be at the mercy of Musk or Zuck.
Colleges use expensive proprietary messaging apps for students, clubs, and teachers that they can monitor and adjust to fit their needs. Mastodon offers that.
Governments sometimes end up in legal hot water due to freedom of information, etc. that comes with corporate social media. Mastodon offers the freedoms and controls necessary to disseminate vital information and to allow or reject posts as required by local laws.
The point is that Mastodon is an effective public facing communication system that also allows internal controls by the host.
The only publicity and marketing budget that the fetiverse has is us, so any opportunity to promote it is our job. Goverment, education, news. These are the vital areas to promote.
There's no need for mastodon to be in the mix here, whatever software they are using can federate directly. I know wordpress already has a plugin to do exactly that. (I have no idea what CMS major news outlets use, hopefully not wordpress)
Not a paywall you have to pay with money per se, but they require you to have an account and be logged in to fully see a profile, a post and its comments. Same goes for Facebook.