In 2018, let’s stop using the pivot to video as a punchline. It’s been terrific shorthand for the very specific practice of flooding feeds with short-form video to appease the algo-gods. But the phrase’s ubiquity and the derision with which we use it obscure an important reality.
The diversification of media is here to stay. As publishers, we need to meet this opportunity with quality in every format we choose to pursue.
Media formats have been diversifying for decades. Consider the long march from print to radio to television to digital. That diversification quickened in recent years to take advantage of all of the gifts of mobile and social. Our media consumption habits today include podcasts, Snap stories, text, short-form social video, documentaries, graphics, interactives, headlines in feeds, Alexa briefings and more. Users are looking for journalism to fit their busy lives instead of finding ways to fit its former rigid form into their own.
This is an important distinction, one too often overlooked in our lovable, cynical newsrooms. We should embrace creating content in diverse formats not because the platforms demand it, but instead because users do.
The much-derided sound-off, Facebook video clip began as a novel form of storytelling, one that took a user’s context into account. That it spawned a league of imitators — some good, some bad — speaks more to the unsettled nature of our business models than it does to the shift itself. This year, let’s not just follow the herd or the platforms toward the next big thing, but instead lean into the formats we can execute with the kind of quality that attracts fans and loyalists and is unique to each of the brands we represent.
The beginnings of this shift are all around us — and they don’t look like fodder the “pivot” cliche calls to mind. The story of the Charlottesville riots was brought viscerally to life through live video and images from journalists on the ground and in Vice’s impressive doc work.
Seth Meyers and John Oliver are showing us how to capture a user’s attention for much longer than a three-second video view by layering humor over aggregation to tell a full story. The Daily makes longform adapt to a user’s busy morning — either at home or en route.
We live in a world full of incredibly powerful screens. We could fill those screens with video repurposed from broadcast or text repurposed from print. Or we could create something new, native to platform, that tell stories in new ways. There is no doubt that the next generation of news lovers will expect this diversification. We owe them creativity, accuracy, style, voice, timeliness, convenience, and humility. This year, let’s put some muscle into it.
Julia Beizer is a vice president of product in the media division at Oath.
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David Skok Finding an information-life balance
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Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
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Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
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Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
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Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
L. Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
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Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
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Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
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Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
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Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Frédéric Filloux External forces
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
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Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
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Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
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Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
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