Given the twists and turns journalism faced in 2016, it would be easy enough to conjure up some pessimistic — or even dystopian — views of what lies ahead for the industry. But I like to think of myself as a realistic and pragmatic optimist, if nothing else because the best way to ensure things won’t improve is to consider it futile to try.
So, my primary hopeful prediction for our industry for 2017:
Getting serious about better forms of measurement. The industry is running on metrics that serve no one well, but we continue chugging along because we all equally accept the lie. In the current model, publishers measure what’s easiest to capture, no matter how reflective of real engagement; production budgets go toward things that generate the best numbers for this so-called “reach” or “impressions” or “uniques,” even when they do little to create revenue or build a brand (especially when on platforms the publisher doesn’t own and can barely monetize); and advertisers accept inflated numbers industry-wide and continue putting the most funding behind stories which may have the least ongoing resonance.
Thus, audiences too frequently get served with unmemorable stories thin on nuance, heavy on provoking knee-jerk response, and with misleading packaging that causes them to bail two sentences, or fifteen seconds, into the piece (assuming the company doesn’t actively measure and talk about bounce rates, completion rates, and/or time spent on site).
Perhaps the frustrations of 2016 — and the untenable-ness of the “reach bubble” — will lead to 2017 as the year industry stakeholders put significant institutional, cross-industry resources behind better advertising products (or sponsorships/foundation funding/etc.) which are predicated on meaningful news brands that resonate with their publics. And, hopefully, that will foster better journalism that people not only are intentionally reading, watching, or listening to but even remembering a story (and the publisher it came from) the next day. If we try to, we’ll find a way to get proactive about this conversation before that reach bubble bursts (or the business model has reached rummage sale levels of commodification).
News organizations design everything around the metrics they’ve accepted. If we don’t address this, much of the rest seems futile. However, I’m greedy. So, on the caveat that next year is the year of meaningful discussion about measurement, here are three more hopeful predictions I hope we work toward making come true in 2017:
Sam Ford is a research affiliate with MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing and former vice president of innovation and engagement at Fusion Media Group.
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Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
David Weigel A test for online speech
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users