2017 will see the rise of a new wave of collaborative European journalism.
Europe is more divided than ever. Traditional barriers of border, language, and culture are being compounded. Isolationism spurred by economic and migration crises is defining politics at the local, national, and continental level. Populism is moving from living room conversations into the ballot box.
Against this backdrop, one of the key systems that would normally hold these people and processes accountable — journalism — is facing its own crisis. Traditional business models have been decimated. Voters are unable to understand politics, and less willing to trust a press they feel is complicit in their detachment from the decisions that affect their lives.
Collaborative European journalism is now essential on two levels. First, patterns hide in silos. We’ve seen from the U.S. elections how weak state-level data can obscure a national picture. To be able to understand and inform, European media needs to connect the dots and tell stories on a continental level.
Second, in order to achieve sustainability and impact, news organizations need to resist the temptation to retreat into their bunkers and budget sheets. Journalists need to be open their failings (and successes) in attempting to define new revenue models and forms of storytelling.
We’ve made a good start. Initiatives like the Digital News Initiative, News Impact Summits, Journalism Grants, and Hacks/Hackers are promoting innovation at the European level. Reporters are crossing borders on projects like the Panama Papers, the Climate Publishers Network, and The Migrants Files. Startups from across Europe are being scaled in fascinating places like Next Media Accelerator. Amongst public broadcasters, the EBU does invaluable work at the European level. On the commercial front, Politico Europe and Blendle are making moves with transnational news and audiences. It may not be a truly pan-European media of the type Wolfgang Blau has advocated for (saying “500 million E.U. citizens, 28 member states, and a crisis, but still no pan-European media. Are we nuts?”), but it’s a model for future growth.
In 2017, collaborative European journalism will prevail and scale. Why? Because, with over 10 national elections next year, it simply has to. With migration challenging notions of the nation state, it simply has to. With climate policy impacting our everyday lives, it simply has to.
2017 will see European news organizations working together on cross-border investigations. Journalists will share datasets and pressure European organizations to open up data platforms. Independent bodies will track and cover voting polls, patterns, and problems. European startups will migrate to the new wave of European accelerators and infect news organizations old and new with disruptive, innovative ideas. European media will develop a common vocabulary to test, measure and analyze the diversity and impact of our coverage, newsrooms, and stories.
If necessity is the mother of invention, collaboration is the father. 2017 will see the rise of a new form of European journalism based on working together to report on the issues that divide and connect our continent.
Adam Thomas is director of the European Journalism Centre.
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
David Weigel A test for online speech
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience