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