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