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