My prediction is that 2018 will be the year of quiet adjustments.
Sound uninspiring…or, actually, manageable and focused? Worrisomely workaday…or maybe a strategy for planning ahead for a news ecosystem in which continual change is business as usual?
If 2016 was sobering — a double-digit drop in print ad revenues, peak anti-platform sentiment, the migration of the large majority of digital ad revenue to Google and Facebook, among other disruptions — then 2017 was arguably chastening. The pivot to video peaked and crashed. VC-fueled digital pure-players lost their luster, missing revenue targets, and following up with layoffs (BuzzFeed, Mashable). The year of Trump, Brexit, and growing populism all across Europe has — this is a reductive shortcut, but all those were driving external factors — forced a turning point on the platforms, which have started evolving, grudgingly, into institutions with social accountability, even as more people that ever before are consuming their news on platforms. The fake news phenomenon has transformed the very identity of news media and their role as trustworthy gatekeepers that had been taken for granted. Those are just a few of this past year’s disruptions.
But because of (or despite) all that, the past few years in the news media ecosystem have also been a flurry of often radical innovation in newsrooms. Powered by results-driven methodologies, full of experiments and outcomes and metrics, it has been transformative. But it has also been exhausting and, for some newsrooms, exhaustive. They may be reaching the natural end of an intense cycle of constant testing-and-learning, even as newsroom restructuring continues. The New York Times just announced its second reorganization in as many years of their audience team, The Washington Post this past summer announced a series of new digital strategy and editorial innovation roles, and here at the Financial Times, we are creating a new newsroom team, led by my colleague Robin Kwong, head of digital delivery, that is defining new digital strategy roles. If this is the start of a new cycle of innovation, what comes next?
It may be that 2018 will be…chill.
I’m kidding. But not entirely. If 2017 reached peak innovation strategizing, pivoting, and iterating, then 2018 may very well be the year of pause, pare back, and hyper-focus. It is a year that could look something like this in newsrooms:
Let’s get really good at the engagement strategies that we now know work.
Let’s try to talk about innovation (always? Only ever?) coupled with sustainability: This thing that we wan to try — what is the lasting change it could bring about? For whom? And what is its value to that audience?
Let’s reassure audiences and not wow them or blow them away — or let’s make the former the priority and the latter the really-nice-to-have. It’s not the end of delight, but let’s focus on sustainable satisfaction.
Let’s prove our value to audiences in everything we do. In other words, let’s make everything we do something worth paying for.
Let’s give away less journalism for free (fewer clicks on Google, less free stuff on social), but let’s offer more ways to pay for it — not just onsite, but offsite — and with a greater variety of products. Maybe not all audiences should be paying the same amount for the same product, or be offered the same products. Let’s anticipate their willingness to pay and offer personalized pricing to go with personalized content.
Let’s change the subject from fake news and trust, and let’s start talking instead about strategies to anticipate our audience’s needs, using AI to understand their habits and preferences even better than they themselves consciously do. Let’s help them understand what they find most useful in what we offer and develop more efficient ways to help them find it.
Let’s ask audiences to tell us what they think, and let’s remember to let them know that we actually listened.
All of which quietly builds trust and loyalty, without asking for it. Quiet revolutions are sometimes the most radical.
Renée Kaplan is head of audience engagement at the Financial Times.
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds