The 2016 presidential election exposed racial fault lines to reveal a deeply fractured country, with citizens who are strangers to one another. We’ve been here before, but what will we say now about race in America?
For some, the work will be what it has always been: attempting to right wrongs by telling the stories of the unseen and unheard. We know now that must also include white people — but not only the ones at the center of the Recent Unpleasantness.
While much has been made about the angry Rust Belt voters we did not know, there was another group we failed to cover — the voters we did know: our neighbors, friends and relatives who made choices we didn’t expect or, according to the polls, didn’t believe they would on Election Day. Talking to them could also yield new insights, if we’re ready to lay down old assumptions. And with renewed interest in the “inner city” — expressed by the president-elect on the campaign trail — must come a renewed commitment to journalism that takes a view of these communities that is more focused on their humanity than body counts.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 race riots that roiled cities like Newark, Detroit, and Cleveland. In their wake, the country asked how and why racial tensions exploded after years of unrest and in the wake of some racial progress. The result of that inquiry was the Kerner Report, commissioned the same year by President Lyndon Johnson. Completed in 1968, the report described a nation “moving toward two societies…separate and unequal.”
Its lessons remain salient, urgent, and befitting the moment as we ponder America’s next chapter and the future of our country’s journalism. Among them: to show up in communities, and not just in times of crisis; to report on the daily lives of minorities in a way that normalizes them to the rest of America; and that newsrooms must hire decision-makers, not just reporters, who are reflective of the communities we cover.
Errin Haines Whack covers urban affairs for the Associated Press.
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David Weigel A test for online speech
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Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
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Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
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Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
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Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
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Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
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Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
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