2017 will be the year that reader loyalty is tested.
Faced with a new political reality that many didn’t expect, readers are looking to deepen their relationships with publications that can help them make sense of the world. In recent weeks, nonprofit newsrooms have seen a “flood” of donations, and the New York Times has gained hundreds of thousands of new subscribers.
It’s tempting for publishers to coast on readers’ renewed passion for journalism. But they shouldn’t get complacent. There’s a clear opportunity for publishers to channel this post-election energy into something more reliable. Those that develop strategies now to double-down on long-term loyalty will succeed in 2017.
They’ll do this in a few ways:
In 2017, the publishers that optimize for quality of content over quantity of clicks will earn the loyalty — and the business — of readers. Their audiences may be smaller, but they’ll be more valuable.
Keren Goldshlager works on Medium’s publisher development team.
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Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Andy Rossback The year of the user
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
David Weigel A test for online speech
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
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Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
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Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach