We Brazilian journalists have to admit that we can do more to contribute to the public debate. Every post published by a newspaper in its social networks triggers comments that are examples of how Brazilian society is divided and, worse, intolerant. The polarization we saw in 2014 is increasing even more as we enter 2018 — not by chance, yet another year of general elections.
Of course, it’s not all journalism’s fault. We are immersed in the same tangle of networks that, according to psychoanalyst Christian Dunker, affects our systems of identification and demand, inflates our egos, diminishes our empathy, and creates hatred in the digital world. At the same time that groups close themselves up in filter bubbles with a false sense of consensus, they also attack whoever puts their beliefs in jeopardy.
Far from feeling sorry and pointing fingers, the goal of this second edition of O jornalismo no Brasil (Journalism in Brazil), a partnership between Farol Jornalismo and the Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (Abraji, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism), is to forecast the conditions we’ll see in 2018 and to propose alternatives, in order to write a different story for the year ahead.
The filter bubbles on social networks will not disappear, nor will the lies spread as if they were news. And it’s not only the public that will be affected by these phenomena; good journalism will also be subject to the effects of a society divided and made up of voracious consumers of social media, as shown by researchers Gabriela Zago and Pablo Ortellado. Brazilian journalists should resist the pressure to reduce editorial standards in order to answer a polarized public that demands content for campaigning to share in their social media profiles. But there are ways to win some of these battles. First of all, we must understand how networks work and help our audience do the same.
“Bursting” these bubbles is also possible — using even the very same weapons that trap us inside them. Against fake news bots, for example, researcher Daniel Magalhães foresees “checking bots,” as well as collaboration between newsrooms and media labs as efforts that will help media outlets use algorithms to their advantage.
In this belligerent atmosphere, it will take a lot of skill from reporters to cover the election. Our series points out two themes that will be highlighted in the political debate: public safety and the environment. The former has great appeal to voters and, to escape from “he said, she said” journalism and the “miraculous proposals and magic solutions” that will surely emerge, professor and former police reporter Francisco Amorim bets on data-driven journalism and notions of statistics. His text is also full of practical tips for anyone who will cover the theme in 2018.
Accused of using environmental issues as a bargaining chip, the federal government is expected to conduct more discussions in this area in the first half of next year, predicts journalist Thiago Medaglia, founder of Ambiental Media. Once again, the path of collaboration seems promising, and journalists should be closer to scholars in order to fight misinterpretations of scientific facts.
Improving our products are an important way to confront the industry’s revenue crisis, according to professor and journalist Rafael Sbarai. In 2018, multidisciplinary positions are expected to gain space in journalistic organizations, especially in digital businesses, from where the most innovative services and products in the Brazilian market should emerge.
According to Nina Weingrill and Simone Cunha, from Énois Escola de Jornalismo, the financial health of media outlets is also linked to their credibility recovery. Although the confidence of the Brazilians in the press is still high, these numbers have been falling, following a tendency seen in newspapers abroad and caused mainly by the discrediting on social networks. Partnerships between big outlets and new initiatives, some from the periphery, are expected to increase in the coming year and may help reverse the situation in Brazil. This strategy is a cost-effective alternative in times of increasingly lean newsrooms.
But the most important outcome of this collaboration is the possibility of increasing the public’s trust by diversifying the ways we looks for new stories and the teams that produce them, which are not very representative, a warning note we sounded in last year’s as well. In this issue, we specifically draw attention to the need for newsrooms to reflect on gender inequality in their newsrooms. Veronica Toste, a Ph.D. in sociology, is the one who approaches the subject and presents unpublished numbers recently raised by Abraji and Gênero & Número in the research Mulheres no Jornalismo (Women in Journalism).
Even though politics promises to take up most of the Brazilian news in 2018, there will be, as in every year of presidential elections, a pause in party debates when we’ll turn our eyes to the World Cup in Russia. The huge event will give journalists opportunities to be creative and explore immersive narratives, according to researchers Suzana Barbosa and Adalton dos Anjos Fonseca.
Despite the fact that the prognoses are generally not optimistic, signs of efforts defending the ethical use of technology in elections can already be seen. A public letter was issued this month in order to preserve freedom of speech and access to quality information and to repudiate the dishonest use of false profiles and the propagation of lies masked as news. Among the signatories are journalistic initiatives such as Agência Lupa and Aos Fatos. Focused on the general public, from citizens and candidates to news outlets and civil society organizations, the #NãoValeTudo (#NotAnythingGoes) campaign could well motivate the work of Brazilian journalists and content producers. Let’s make this pact for 2018.
Marcela Donini is cofounder of Farol Jornalismo. Thiago Herdy is a reporter at O Globo and president of Abraji.
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse