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