The candidates. Their families. His tweets. Her emails. Inaccurate polling and fake news. This was an unprecedented presidential election, and it seemed to have had it all: humor, horror, scandal, and a dramatic, trust-shaking plot twist of an ending. But in the media’s collective post-election mea culpa — one thing stood out. Much of the coverage had overlooked a key factor. One that was so simple, and so available. As The New York Times (speaking for so many) confessed: “[We missed] talking to different kinds of people.”
We get most of our “hard news” from TV hosts, talking heads, analysts, experts, and spokespeople. But as administrations and policies change, one thing is for certain: the effects will be felt not only by institutions and industries, but by people. Everyday Americans whose work lives, family lives, and quality of life will be affected — for the better or for the worse. The media has a responsibility to cover these “small” stories. They illuminate, deepen, give heart and soul to the “big” stories.
As an aural medium, public radio — and now the exploding podcasting arena — champions people’s voices. With regional specificity and personal flair, individual stories and authentic voices have the power to create empathy, connection and understanding. Programs like This American Life, StoryCorps, Radiolab, 2 Dope Queens, and so many others are doing this to great effect.
I predict that in 2017, more news outlets will listen more deeply to the people of this country with genuine curiosity and without preconception. To find common strands and common solutions. To bridge a chasm that is wider than we realized. Authentic voices — not fake news. In 2017, the media will let the people have their say.
Laura Walker is the President and CEO of New York Public Radio.
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Richard J. Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
David Weigel A test for online speech
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Amy Webb Journalism as a service