For as long as they’ve existed, most newsrooms have viewed other newsrooms as competition to be kept at a safe distance. Technology companies, a much more recent addition to the journalism ecosystem, have been seen as even more foreign — an alternate species that doesn’t even speak the same language. But as technology continues to change the way news and information is created and shared, we can no longer afford to operate in silos. Collaboration has become essential, even urgent, and we’ll see more of it in 2017 than in any previous year to date.
The internet has given us access to more information sources than ever before, and high quality journalism serves a uniquely important role in providing people with trusted information. As trust in media is challenged and the economic challenges facing news organizations continue, the newsrooms who produce this journalism and the technology companies who surface and distribute it will come together this year. By joining forces, they’ll be able to better identify and serve the needs of their shared audiences and pool resources where it makes sense.
In 2017, we’ll see collaboration:
There are great examples of collaboration and coalition building that are paving the way, including First Draft, Journalism360, the Trust Project, and Electionland. Each of these projects has brought together coalitions of newsrooms and technology companies to join forces to tackle a big challenge together.
More coalitions will crop up in 2017 and those that already exist will be strengthened. These alliances will focus on sharing knowledge, best practices, and case studies, with the ultimate goal of avoiding duplication of effort. It doesn’t make sense for each newsroom to reinvent the wheel — think about how much faster the industry would move if there was less focus on beating your competitor and more focus on learning from them. We’ll get much higher if we’re building on top of each other’s shoulders.
Olivia Ma is head of partnerships for the Google News Lab.
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
David Weigel A test for online speech
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users