In 2016, the media’s usual battle for attention felt more like a war. Fueled primarily by an unprecedented political season, consumers were bombarded with a ceaseless litany of “breaking news,” recycled headlines, fake stories, and social feeds just begging for their next click.
From an outsider’s perspective (putting print media aside), it would seem like a golden age for the news business. However, those of us in the bunkers know that’s not quite the case. The battlefield has never been more crowded and the challenges, particularly in the digital space, have never been more real. We’ve been fighting against ourselves, and, in turn, we’ve surrendered too much of our territory to the platform and ad tech giants who have increasingly monopolized the larger attention economy.
All is not lost.
As I look towards 2017, I believe many news outlets (legacy or digital native) will focus less of their resources on “off-platform expansion” — whether through Facebook Instant Articles, Snapchat Discover, or Apple News — and expend more effort doubling-down on what’s most important, and what they do best: building trust with readers. The major social networks have struggled to do this over the last year, and the passive programmatic machine lurking in the background is, by its very nature, anonymous.
Trust, regardless of a media company’s political leanings or institutional beliefs, is where news brands can and will continue to thrive in the future. We know that trust leads to greater engagement, brand affinity, and a willingness to pay for premium news content. Think of it as a battle for hearts and minds instead of just eyeballs and clicks.
Importantly, trust will directly influence the amount of time consumers spend with digital news content (and digital news brands) moving forward, regardless of the platform, medium or device. For brands who are trying to connect with consumers in a more meaningful and authentic way, time spent will be the digital ad currency of the future, above and beyond the click, like, share, or even the most sophisticated forms of audience targeting.
As we live through an age of fake news and filter bubbles, the trust surrounding quality journalism, and the time readers and consumers spend engaging with real news content, has never mattered more. It also matters greatly to marketers, and in 2017, the battle lines will move further away from buying passive eyeballs at scale to buying eyeballs that are actually looking back.
This will be the year the digital media juggernauts finally recognize the importance of journalism’s role in breeding greater trust and increasing engagement across their platforms, which is not only a win for the reader, but also provides a larger opportunity to capture those more elusive branding dollars that will continue to leave print and television.
The future of the digital news business, which is the future of news itself, is at stake. If we don’t win the war for reader trust, we’ll be left fighting battles for a smaller share of ad dollars. The good news is it’s a war we can win.
Michael Kuntz is senior vice president of digital revenue at USA Today Network.
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
David Weigel A test for online speech
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism