Matt Lauer, Mark Halperin, Charlie Rose, and all the other fallen sexual harassers had one thing in common. They were notorious assholes. (See Venn diagram below.)
They yelled at people, belittled staff in front of colleagues, threatened, bullied, interrupted, mocked, and generally threw their weight around. We thought it was the price to pay for the talent of great men. Maybe being an asshole was even a sign of great talent.
It was a sign, all right. A sign that something was very, very wrong. And the price? Toxic workplaces, talent drain, skewed covering, lawsuits, long-term damage to news organizations’ reputation and credibility, and loss of revenue from advertisers, subscribers, and members.
Prediction: In 2018, newsrooms adopt a no-assholes rule. You want to be an asshole? Sorry, you can’t work here.
(Credit for inventing the No Asshole Rule goes to Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton.)
Marie Gilot is the director of CUNY J+, the professional development arm of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse