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