As journalists, we make an implicit promise to inform our readers as best we can.
When we started out a few centuries ago, the way to do that was to print daily news articles on paper.
Not much has changed since. Sure, today we work online and use more pictures and video, but we’re still doing what we’ve always done: informing the public by publishing fresh articles every day. When something happens, we write a story. When something else happens, we write a new story.
News event? New story!
New developments? New story!
New responses? New story!
Until recently, one revenue model perfectly suited this cycle:
Fresh articles ⇧ → More eyeballs ⇧ → More ad dollars ⇧
But the ad-based earnings model is in trouble.
Instead, journalism is increasingly looking to reader revenue. The new model works as follows:
Informative publication ⇧ → Reader satisfaction ⇧ → Reader revenue ⇧
So it’s time to ask a rhetorical question.
Does the age-old practice of informing readers through a flood of successive news reports still make sense?
The answer, of course, is: No, not really.
Nowadays, when readers want to find specific information or learn about a topic in depth, they have to plow through loads of old articles and videos.
Then they have to take the latest story as the last word.
Why? Because:
Basically, we peddle today’s news while failing to put at readers’ disposal everything else that’s ever happened and been reported on. That means we aren’t informing the public as effectively as we could. So readers lose the thread of what’s happening, or grow cynical about a world that’s presented as a succession of unrelated incidents.
Either way, people stop paying, since we’re not delivering the promised service.
Early attempts to inform readers in smarter ways — Vox Cards, the old Circa app — often failed because they relied on ads and traffic.
But there have been successes. The queen of paywall revenue, The New York Times, has over 2 million digital-only subscribers. The Gray Lady employs its Beta team to find the best ways of using new storytelling forms to inform readers so they’ll stay happy subscribers. And it’s working.
So far, most thriving Beta projects focus on service content. For instance, the NYT Cooking app lets users browse, search and save the paper’s thousands of recipes. And its Wirecutter site shares consumer testing results in a highly usable, efficient format.
But the approach can work for hard news stories too. And in 2018, we’ll start to see how. Journalists will be doing more updating, personalizing, and improving of access to content — and we’ll be publishing less.
Ernst-Jan Pfauth is CEO of The Correspondent.
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity