2016 was a journalism nightmare, with the missed story on the U.S. election and rampant misinformation. 2017 was a rebuilding year, with brave reporting on sexual harassment showing journalism’s impact, and healthy subscription growth at top organizations like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Next year, 2018, is when things gets real. Despite the promising momentum, this easily can go sideways. This is the year that we need to solidify business models and make real steps to improve news product. No pressure or anything — it’s just the fate of our democracy on the line.
Ads haven’t been cutting it for a while, and we know a major part of the business model answer is getting the people who use our product to pay for it. This isn’t the time to be timid in closing the sale. Subscriptions and memberships are gaining traction, and 2018 needs to be a year with more business model experimentation.
One of the more interesting attempts will be around cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. This isn’t about the hype around Bitcoin’s soaring value, but building new currencies around trust and authenticity using an open, transparent platform. Civil is one such experiment set to launch early in 2018 that will be closely watched.
On the product side, we’ve refined the basic story forms and are getting the hang of podcasts and newsletters. Now this needs to get truly interactive. One of the hottest new media products is HQ, the interactive trivia show mobile app. How can journalism apply the lessons from that format to create exciting live experiences, and give tangible benefits to users for knowing the facts?
We need to use the convening power of media to build network effects, where products get better the more people that use them. Galley, an app in private beta that’s like a Slack team for media geeks launched by Josh Young, has begun testing whether closed, niche networks can build more constructive interactions than the dreaded comment box. Such experiments will expand next year to other niches and formats.
We need to think smartly about how to leverage algorithms and machine learning, and see how they can help source stories and present them. One interesting experiment is Vigilant (which we’re funding at the Lenfest Institute), making public data more accessible and understandable. Their local pilot in Philadelphia is just getting started and they will be expanding trials early in the new year.
Journalists will also be working more smartly. The Washington Post’s Arc platform will be much more widely adopted in the new year. Some of Arc’s most interesting features provide internal metrics that track how journalists are meeting deadlines and whether they are publishing the right stories when audiences want to read them. Media organizations will also working yet more collaboratively. Platforms like Heather Bryant’s Project Facet, launching soon in beta (and another Lenfest grantee), will test whether better tools foster more collaborative storytelling projects.
2018: We can do this.
Burt Herman is director of innovation projects at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products