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.
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Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
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M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
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David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
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Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
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Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
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Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
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Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
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Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
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Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
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Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
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Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
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Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
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Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
David Weigel A test for online speech
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
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Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
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Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
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Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
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Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
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Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
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Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
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