2017 will be the year that reader loyalty is tested.
Faced with a new political reality that many didn’t expect, readers are looking to deepen their relationships with publications that can help them make sense of the world. In recent weeks, nonprofit newsrooms have seen a “flood” of donations, and the New York Times has gained hundreds of thousands of new subscribers.
It’s tempting for publishers to coast on readers’ renewed passion for journalism. But they shouldn’t get complacent. There’s a clear opportunity for publishers to channel this post-election energy into something more reliable. Those that develop strategies now to double-down on long-term loyalty will succeed in 2017.
They’ll do this in a few ways:
In 2017, the publishers that optimize for quality of content over quantity of clicks will earn the loyalty — and the business — of readers. Their audiences may be smaller, but they’ll be more valuable.
Keren Goldshlager works on Medium’s publisher development team.
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
David Weigel A test for online speech
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives