The Battle on Fake News is upon us. We all know about filter bubbles, and we’re now talking about whether this thing is basically unwinnable. Then again, subscriptions and donations to news organizations are way up in the wake of the election. But this debate won’t be settled in 2017.
I come to speak of another front in the greater War Against Misinformation. As it has been since very early days, the internet is filled with untrustworthy garbage. Shady internet listings and SEO spam of yesteryear have given way to our contemporary sophisticated system of targeted CONTENT MARKETING that can find you across the socially woven web. Usually while yelling at you in all caps.
But the pendulum is swinging back, and at the forefront of that swing will be service journalism and trusted guidance. The sole purpose of this coverage is to help people live lives that are more efficient, more productive, healthier, and smarter — who doesn’t want that?
Service journalism is no trend. It’s a classic that newsrooms are dusting off to complement their full news reports. A few recent, excellent examples: Quartzy, Quartz’s new-ish newsletter about “living well in the global economy.” The Hairpin’s fitness column Ask A Swole Woman. New York’s newly launched Strategist. The unstoppable forces of BuzzFeed’s Nifty and Tasty. It’s something we’ve seen here at The New York Times with our curation of Smarter Living stories.
There is even a growing list of publications that put service as a signature value proposition of their publications. Wait but Why (the best newsletter I subscribe to). Financial guidance sites like the always-informative Billfold and new upstarts like The Financial Diet. And, of course, the site that perfected the form, Lifehacker.
My prediction is that 2017 will see a further blooming of great sites and services like this. It will be a highlight of the industry, one of the few safe spaces that will float above the War Against Misinformation. News outlets are going to dive in aggressively.
And there’s money to be made here! Look at The Wirecutter: The recommendations site reportedly drove $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015, and earlier this year it was acquired by The New York Times Company for $30 million partly because of its “very attractive” revenue model.
That model has spread to BuzzFeed, Hearst, Vox Media, New York magazine, the former Gawker Media, and more, and it will only continue to filter through news outlets once the success of those becomes apparent (it will, and in many cases already has).
The opportunity here is for news outlets to double down on service and strengthen their position as places readers can consume news and also learn to live better, healthier, and more conversant lives.
Tim Herrera is Smarter Living editor at The New York Times.
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
David Weigel A test for online speech
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting