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.
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Richard J. Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
David Weigel A test for online speech
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities