Journalism as opposition. This sounds like a partisan stance, but it really isn’t. There are a few macro forces pushing journalism into attack mode: President-elect Donald Trump’s frightening stance toward the press; the rise of fake news (read: propaganda); our descent into a “post-truth” fog; lies by public officials; increasingly prominent and frequent acts of hatred; a general glut of things to read and watch. All of these will clarify journalism’s mission next year. Standing up and telling the truth will seem radical and urgent in 2017. The basic spadework of journalism — David Farenthold’s doggedness comes to mind — will begin to break through the national conversation in a way that hasn’t happened in years.
Visual journalism wins. There’s been a lot of pivoting to video by web media companies, moves that have mostly overestimated readers’ appetite for video (and the ability to make money of it). But there’s more going on here. TV channels are trying to become websites; websites are trying to become like TV channels. On Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter, readers have become to expect a visual layer places on top of stories. Online news is quickly becoming visual, and at Vice News we build that into the core of what we do.
In 2017, the pivot to video so many web publishes have made will begin to shake out. Here’s more wishful thinking: Quality will win, mostly. Traditional media stalwarts like The New York Times and The Washington Post will formalize their commitment to visual journalism. Visual journalism — and eventual integration with TV — will begin to become table stakes for big web media companies.
Platforms grow up — or grow even more toxic. Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit will be forced to finally, begrudgingly accept their influence on society, on political and cultural polarization. Pizzagate won’t be the last time the fetid river of online bullshit spills into the real world. Beyond their increasingly fraught relationship with news, platforms will face a pretty simple calculus: correct for civility or risk losing users en masse (look what happened to Twitter). I’m not predicting that people start abandoning Facebook in 2017, but it’s getting dangerously close to losing its monopoly on our attention. 2017 may be the year Facebook gets permanently branded as part of the problem.
Ryan McCarthy is editor-in-chief of Vice News.
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
David Weigel A test for online speech
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism