In years past, most Nieman Lab annual predictions correctly centered around how journalism will grapple with rapidly changing technology in the coming year. How would we adapt to digital, social, mobile, VR, and other advances that affect the distribution, reporting, and nature of news? We knew these changes would affect the industry profoundly, and many used this space to offer thoughtful and accurate predictions on how.
But in 2017, I know I’m not alone in thinking that our focus will turn away from technology to even weightier issues surrounding truth, trust, and even the survival of our democracy, which depends on a free and vibrant press. How can we combat “fake news” or, more accurately, propaganda? How can we do our jobs when both the left and the right are increasingly vociferous in their condemnation of our work? (And no, having everybody hate us doesn’t mean we are “doing it right.”) How do we do our jobs with an administration that is openly hostile to the press?
The Fourth Estate is in crisis, and as I’ve written previously, I am desperately hoping that we respond with a roar, not a whimper. We must fearlessly call out lies and propaganda despite the relentless pressure to be stenographers. We must commit to listening and empathy, and not just to the usual suspects — and by this I do not mean coming to the absurd conclusion that our biggest coverage blindspot involved white men. We must continue to punch up, but also spend more time on getting a bottom-up understanding of the concerns and goals of the people we serve. We must double-down on diversity in newsrooms and the internal communication that makes it possible for different perspectives to be heard. We must not just continue to rigorously check the facts but explain to the public how we do so and why it matters.
But this is supposed to be a prediction, not an admonition. Will we do this?
I’m afraid the answer is “not enough.” We’ll debate and have panels, and talk past each other. Many will pound the lectern haranguing us on their rigid, intellectually bereft notions of what objectivity means in journalism, even though years ago The Elements of Journalism helped us understand what decades of great scholars have long known, that objectivity is a method, not some kind of magical spell that somehow removes any biases from individual reporters and editors. We will fight false equivalence, but we’ll still see it emerge on many fronts, especially cable news.
There will be many brave journalists — some of them my former students, if I may so brag — that will be working to not just tell stories and uncover wrongdoing but also to find creative ways to use their skills to work with communities and not just for them to solve problems. They will be working not just at startups but also working inside larger, more traditional news organizations, trying to change the culture and think about new approaches to news. I can only hope they succeed. I’ll be working as hard as I can to be sure that they do.
Carrie Brown-Smith is director of the social journalism program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Andy Rossback The year of the user
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
David Weigel A test for online speech
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers