Most news organizations have failed to truly transform over the past few years. Any innovation and change initiatives have been little more than tinkering.
2017 was a particularly bad year for this, with numerous publishers apparently pursuing a strategy of howling in protest against Google and Facebook as well loudly as shouting “I told you so” with the recent news of revenue disappointment and cutbacks at firms such as BuzzFeed.
2018 will undoubtedly bring more of the same — but the industry will finally see the first seeds of radical reinvention. We will see most change in 2018 in three main areas:
Tanya Cordrey is a digital non-executive director, former Schibsted board member, and former chief digital officer at Guardian News & Media.
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Carrie Brown Transparency finally takes off
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Nik Usher The year of The Washington Post
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers