Navigating journalistic transparency

“The media industry has shifted in so many ways in the last two decades, but our readers have not been privy to the process in a way that helps them understand.”

As an industry, it’s our duty to help readers understand what we do, how we work, how we make money, and how they are part of this process. The media industry has shifted in so many ways in the last two decades, but our readers have not been privy to the process in a way that helps them understand. For instance, they might not understand why we break news the way we do, or why quality journalism can be expensive to generate.

Distrust in institutions — including flinging the term “fake news” at our best news organizations — only contributes to the problem. In 2018, I anticipate more newsrooms sharing how the sausage gets made to our consumers, engaging with young readers to stress news literacy at an early age, or getting readers involved in the reporting/producing process more frequently beyond commenting and sharing stories on social media.

Michelle Garcia is race and identities senior editor at Vox.

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David Skok   Finding an information-life balance

Francesco Marconi   The year of machine-to-machine journalism

C.W. Anderson   The social media apocalypse

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Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer   Skepticism and narcissism

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Juleyka Lantigua   Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time

Taylor Lorenz   Social and media will split

Emma Carew Grovum   Newsroom culture becomes a priority

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Mariana Moura Santos   Think local, act global

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Marie Gilot   No assholes allowed

Paul Ford   Go global

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Amy Webb   Listen to weak signals

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Rubina Madan Fillion   Unlocking the potential of AI

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Raney Aronson-Rath   Transparency is the antidote to fake news

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Federica Cherubini   The rise of bridge roles in news organizations

Rodney Gibbs   Tech workers turn to journalism

Kawandeep Virdee   Zines had it right all along

John Keefe   Scooped by AI

Laura E. Davis   Writing answers before you know the question

Richard Tofel   The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention

Kim Fox   Audience teams diversify their approach

Mary Meehan   Real lives are at stake in rural areas

Nikki Usher   The year of The Washington Post

Mary Walter-Brown   Show a little vulnerability

Cindy Royal   Your journalism curriculum is obsolete

Caitlin Thompson   Podcasting models mature and diversify

Renée Kaplan   The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)

Corey Ford   The empire strikes back

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Matt DeRienzo   A recession, then a collapse

Vivian Schiller   Pivot to tomorrow

Matt Thompson   Here come the attention managers

Alexios Mantzarlis   Moving fake news research out of the lab

Dan Shanoff   You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)

Jarrod Dicker   Honesty in advertising

Raju Narisetti   Mirror, mirror on the wall

Jassim Ahmad   Thriving on change

Kinsey Wilson   Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up

Nicholas Diakopoulos   Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity

Carlos Martínez de la Serna   The new journalism commons

Cristina Wilson   The year of the Instagram Story

Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy   Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism

Lanre Akinola   Making noise is not a strategy

Pia Frey   Address users as individuals

Alice Antheaume   Are you fluent in AI?

Jim Moroney   Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for

Edward Roussel   Eyes, ears, and brains

Jared Newman   Venture funding and digital news don’t mix

Susie Banikarim   R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)

Rodney Benson   Better, less read, and less trusted

Alfred Hermida   Going beyond mobile-first

Michelle Ferrier   The year of the great reckoning

Feli Sánchez   The year for guerrilla user research

Adam Thomas   Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor

Matt Carlson   Attacks on the press will get worse

Molly de Aguiar   Good journalism won’t be enough

Charo Henríquez   Training is an investment, not an expense

Aron Pilhofer   We can’t leave the business to the business side any more

Niketa Patel   Live journalism comes of age

Corey Johnson   The pro-fact resistance

Michael Kuntz   The only pivot that might work

Lam Thuy Vo   Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest

Matt Boggie   The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea

Rachel Schallom   Better design helps differentiate opinion and news

Mariano Blejman   News games rule

Umbreen Bhatti   The trust problem isn’t new

Helen Havlak   Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds

Ariana Tobin   Too tired to tap

Jesse Holcomb   Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you

Monika Bauerlein   The firehose of falsehood

Carrie Brown-Smith   Transparency finally takes off

Rick Berke   Value is the watchword

Zizi Papacharissi   Women come back

Basile Simon   We need better career paths for news nerds

Nancy Watzman   Know thy TV

Kristen Muller   The year of the voter

Felix Salmon   Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin

Julia B. Chan   Looking for loyalty in all the right places

Ray Soto   VR reaches the next level

Nicholas Quah   Stop talking trash about young people

Lucas Graves   From algorithms to institutions

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Dheerja Kaur   Fun with subscription products

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Daniel Trielli   The rich get richer, the poor scramble

Trushar Barot   The Jio-fication of India

Tanzina Vega   It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic

Juliette De Maeyer   A responsible press criticism

Yvonne Leow   The rise of video messaging

Tamar Charney   We get serious about algorithms

José Zamora   Revenue-first journalism

Errin Haines   At the ballot, it’s time to count black women

Miguel Castro   The arrival of the impact producer

Burt Herman   Things get real

Vanessa K. DeLuca   Women’s voices take center stage

Hannah Cassius   The year of the echo-chamber escapists

Andrew Losowsky   The year of resilience

Elizabeth Jensen   Show your work

Claire Wardle   Disinformation gets worse

Ernst-Jan Pfauth   Publishing less to give readers more

Nathalie Malinarich   Peak push

Tim Carmody   Watch out for Spotify

Mira Lowe   The year of the local watchdog

Brian Lam   Sketchy ethics around product reviews

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Dan Newman   A return to trust

Tracie Powell   The muting of underserved voices

Sarah Marshall   Loyalty as the key performance indicator

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Heather Bryant   Building the ecosystems for collaboration

Cory Haik   Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact

Debra Adams Simmons   And a woman shall lead them

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Christopher Meighan   Passive partnership is in the rearview

Sam Ford   The year of investing in processes

Sam Sanders   Shine the light on ourselves

Amie Ferris-Rotman   More female reporters abroad (please)