What the heck just happened?
In 2016, we kept asking that question as events moved beyond our ability to predict them. In 2017, we have to answer it. We might not like where that answer leads.
What the heck is happening? History matters, and we are watching it play out again in brutal fashion. People can’t tell real news from fake, while soft-focus profiles of neo-Nazis outnumber coverage of local education, and Facebook is looking for a news editor.
Journalism is a profession where being “in the know” has great social currency. It can also bring out the worst affects of insularity and condescension. Broad pronouncements over the fate of the country are made by closed circles of “experts” who live in the same three-block radius within maybe four cities, based on reading each other’s thinkpieces and imagined conversations with fictional Americans. We get constant explanations of the lives of those Americans who have been part of public life for centuries, but somehow can’t break into the double digits combined in any major newsroom. Newsrooms are shedding jobs left and right. Freelancers are barely surviving as legacy and new media platforms ebb and flow like the tides. Public trust in the media continues to plummet, and it’s not hard to see why.
Except that’s not the whole truth. The election results drove up subscriptions to several news outlets. Small cultural journals are creating amazing member-supported pieces. Good work is being recognized as good work, no matter where it originates. New faces and perspectives are completely reshaping where we go for news and what it is.
All of these things are true and none of them are the only truth, but we got here somehow and one thing is clear: Journalism must shift from claiming to have all the answers to being the ones with the skills to survey the different perspectives, match them to the facts, and connect the two with the worlds that people actually live in. The small monopoly of voices just don’t cut it anymore.
What the heck better happen?
This is the year that journalism stops crafting the history the profession wants, and deals with the history the profession has. If we don’t know what’s going on, it’s because we’re not listening to the people who do. If they don’t want to talk to us, then we have to figure out why.
How people feel about the media has changed the course of history. It’s doing it again. Journalism needs to face itself, before history does.
Sydette Harry is community lead on The Coral Project.
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Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
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Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
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Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
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Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
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Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
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David Chavern Fake news gets solved
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Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
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Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
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Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
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Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
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Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
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Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
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Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
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Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
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Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
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Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
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