The intrusion of fake news into the media ecosystem has been met with fear and outrage.
Yet fake news might trigger a good thing, too: A reminder of the extraordinary value of truth and perhaps a realization that, after much agonizing over the viability of the news business, there is a raison d’être beyond the accumulation of digital eyeballs.
Journalism is often at its best during periods of genuine turmoil or uncertainty. In occupied Europe, amid disinformation on the most extreme scale, truth was spread furtively on printed pamphlets, some of which evolved into leading news outlets of the post-war era.
We’re nowhere near there, but fake news still is a serious matter. Scolding social media platforms for distributing it misses the point. Endemic obfuscation requires even stronger reporting mixed with entrepreneurship — an opportunity to live up to the core of the profession.
The coming year will bring many changes. I hope one of them will be positive: the rise of vigorous and entrepreneurial quality journalism.
Almar Latour is publisher and executive vice president for Dow Jones Media Group.
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Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
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Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
David Weigel A test for online speech
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
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Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
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Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
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Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
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Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
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Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
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