Journalists have a distant, fraught relationship with “the public.”
As a young journalist, you learn by osmosis that the public is who you seek out for quotes, local color, “man on the street” colloquialisms. The public is who calls in to your show, comments on your stories, turns up at events.
Sometimes what the public says is angry, or rude, or racist, or homophobic. Occasionally, it’s poignant or wise. But on balance, the public is seen as unpredictable, untrustworthy.
We are taught not to be part of the public, but to stand apart from the public. To paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, journalists can love humanity, but hate people.
This year, a meaningful number of journalists will understand that their deeply encoded aloofness to the public is really the mutation that’s afflicting journalism — and they will begin to rethink and recode their work as both reporters and relationship-builders.
Business imperatives will require it. The momentum will continue to rapidly shift away from ad-based models for supporting journalism to memberships and subscriptions. Each piece of content we create, then, becomes less a bid for eyeballs and more an opportunity to create trust, loyalty, and a feeling of being served by journalism (vs. entertained, scared, titillated, or enraged).
More fledgling and startup projects like Discourse Media in Canada; De Correspondent’s new U.S. offering, The Correspondent; Outlier Media in Detroit; and Reach NC Voices in North Carolina will nimbly experiment with relationship-building approaches, ultimately showing slower-moving “legacy” media how it’s done in the service of journalism and the longer-term sustainability of our work.
More established outlets like ProPublica, The Guardian, and The Texas Tribune will refine and spread new metrics — knowing that you only get what you measure — to reorient newsroom reward structures around building deeper relationships with smaller communities vs. larger but less engaged drive-by audiences.
More audience members (a.k.a. the public), who increasingly expect personalization and localization in all of their online commerce, will get frustrated when — like everyone else — they get a standard form email to renew a subscription to a news organization whose stories they have commented on, whose personalities feel almost like friends and whose work they feel personally invested in.
They might ask: “Who do they think I am?” Good question.
Andrew Haeg is founder and CEO of GroundSource.
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)