Winter is here.
I felt the bite of the wind most deeply when I got the email from another parent who had been on my daughter’s playground the day after that terrifying night:
The girls were standing in a circle
Comparing skin color
And deciding who was safe
And who was not.
These were first graders.
In Oakland.
On 11/9.
Day One of Trump.
I broke down. Terrified.
Was this my country now?
Nightmare. Sheer terror. Please wake me up. Wake up!
This is not my America.
But it was. I was awoken.
This is how it feels to be terrified of authorities.
To feel the machines of a totalitarian state begin to screech and turn and target you.
To look around at your fellow citizens and not know who is friend and who is foe.
This is how many of my fellow Americans who do not look like me feel every. single. day.
America, the myth. Shattered.
That woke me up.
No time to cry. No time to panic.
I was made for this moment, and so were you.
It’s the time to fight.
The time to courageously risk our privilege.
The time not just to resist, but to oppose.
Each with our own superpower from our own point of leverage.
From in front of the camera,
To the newsrooms of New York City,
To the garages of Silicon Valley.
Those who flinch will fall in disgrace. Heroes no more.
But those who stay clear eyed in their values and shout into the face of a creeping normalization of what we CANNOT let become normal — will rise.
It’s that. Or we lose everything we stand for as Americans.
An informed and connected public is the bedrock of democracy. But with our journalistic institutions under threat economically, politically, and culturally, that bedrock is cracking.
We need to strengthen our media ecosystem.
The seeds of the next great media institutions will be planted this year by courageous entrepreneurs who make the leap to build ventures that speak truth to power, close the empathy gap, and take a radically inclusive approach to amplifying the voices of all Americans.
Winter may be here but inside the fire is rekindled anew. Our purpose is clear.
This is the Year of The Rebelpreneur.
Corey Ford is managing partner of Matter.
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Richard J. Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
David Weigel A test for online speech
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble