Who doesn’t have whiplash from 2016? If this was the year of “do it all,” 2017 will be the year of “do it best.”
Platforms are evolving at breakneck speed, leaving publishers to choose their strategic battles and readers with more options than ever. The noise in what’s become a crowded digital space isn’t going to dull, but the audience is learning what to listen to. Publishers need only hear them.
In 2017, we must get back to basics. But that doesn’t mean being basic.
Readers aren’t distracted by bells and whistles. They know what they want, and that’s quality — wherever they consume news. Most readers are platform agnostic — on their phones switching between iMessage, email, Twitter, and Snapchat all day. Why should what they see in Apple News or on a Facebook Instant Article be inferior to what they could experience on a publisher’s site or app?
In digital media, we should always be in beta. But we don’t have to skimp on quality to open the door to creativity. If we take one thing away from this election, it should be that journalism matters. Facts are important. Reporting will be rewarded. And if you can put it all together in a thoughtful, digestible way, readers will respond. They are aching for someone to depend on.
Politics divided the nation in 2016. But journalism will unify us. Those who were duped by the fake news and half-truths that ran rampant won’t be fooled again. They want to be educated. They want to trust. The uptick in subscriptions across many major organizations tells us so. Now it’s on us to deliver. It’s on us to perfect content, experience and product. In 2017, our loyalty must be to the reader.
Coleen O’Lear is editorial director for emerging news products at The Washington Post.
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
David Weigel A test for online speech
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy