It is an extraordinary time and, as history demonstrates, times of unpredictability and flux are when tried and true forms for human expression are broken and expanded. Think Brahms, who ribboned his melodies across bar lines, shaking off the constraints of measured beats, helping to move out of the classical and into the romantic periods of musical expressionism. There’s the painter Agnes Martin, who carried her compulsive grid making over decades into pure illuminations of the ineffable — representations of “beauty, innocence, happiness,” blurring the line between abstract expressionism and minimalism. Or NPR’s first program director Bill Siemering, who created a new magazine form he dubbed All Things Considered in 1971, opening the way for headline news of national concern — a violent turn in a Vietnam war protest — to sit alongside uniquely defining American moments happening, for example, in a barber’s chair in Ames, Iowa.
Transcendent makers are as much defining of their time as they are idiosyncratic in their craft. They also have the power to give permission and courage to others to push further and test limits.
Journalism is expanding, its rules being broken and remade. The sacred tenants of truth, balance, and objectivity are considered by many on all points of the spectrum to be relative, subject to interpretation. We have a stimulating flux between technological ingenuity opening space for new social and digital narrative forms and, simultaneously, a push beyond limitations of physical space, with a frontier of viable new platforms opening where people are living each day. This physical, “street” platform is rich with opportunity to change craft and change the story.
We now understand the 2016 presidential election to be a catalyst. I recently asked Tom Webster of Edison Research what he learned from their polling. He described a nation that is not so much white or black, or blue or red, but comprised of homogeneous pockets: many, many pods of one-minded people; where, for example, “not a single vote was cast for Mitt Romney in the last election.” Trump’s team orchestrated with precision a plan to target and be the voice for those groups who, it seems apparent, feel sidelined, who exist outside the bounds of identity politics. This understanding is helpful for those of us now determined to reflect a more inclusive American story.
Change is in the hands of organizations to some degree, but real and enduring change begins in the making of story and in the collective work of individuals who are adapting their craft across formats, technologies, and platforms. How to best direct and support the fantastic talent diaspora underway to involve ordinary people in new ways? Here are a few guideposts:
The power of media is the power of reflecting human experience. If enlightenment is what we seek to deliver, it’s helpful to recognize the paradox of these times: that we seek to enlighten not only to those living in those discreet pods Edison points out, but to those people already familiar with our work, enlightening them to worlds just up the road. In this way, through new platforms we open in physical space, and guided by our deepest human instincts of fairness, balance, objectivity, with the courage to love, we make story that pulls from one side, to the other, bringing disparate and divided parts of our communities together into an integrated whole. To tie. To bind. Indeed to heal.
Sue Schardt is CEO of AIR and executive producer of Localore: Finding America.
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Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
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Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
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Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
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Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
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Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
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Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
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Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
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Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
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Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
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M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
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Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
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Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
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David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
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Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
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Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
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Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
David Weigel A test for online speech
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
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