In 2017, if you couldn’t find an audience or revenue model, for any of a myriad of reasons, there was apparently only one thing to do: pivot to video!
And while that’s become a media punchline, it’s not hard to see why the publishers who took that approach did. As the content boom finally seemed to go bust (see: Mashable, Mic, and Vice) and platforms proved themselves increasingly unreliable (read: terrible) partners, focusing on video was a Hail Mary attempt to ease economic and investor pressure by pandering to ad buyer preferences. It sounds better to say you’re “shifting resources into short-form video” than that you desperately need to reduce your run rate.
But it has already proven extremely shortsighted. There is no evidence consumers want more video, and video production is expensive, logistically difficult, and hard to scale (read Heidi Moore’s excellent CJR piece for more on this). There are early signs that even ad buyers are realizing video isn’t some panacea, and will redistribute some of their budgets accordingly in the coming year. And perhaps most importantly, such pivots seemed universally to come at the expense of good journalists and editors, still the beating heart of newsrooms and who didn’t deserve to be “strategically” discarded. It’s time to officially declare this particular approach dead and admit it’s not, in fact, a strategy or solution.
I’m not suggesting video isn’t an essential part of any content mix in 2018. It is, and as someone who spent many years working in TV and video, I know that some stories are better told visually. But video storytelling is an actual skill, developed over years of working in the medium, not something you pick up through osmosis by getting stoned in college and watching YouTube videos. It’s insulting to the people who do it well to assume that it’s a shortcut to success.
That’s why publishers who made the pivot are now pivoting away again, looking for the next thing that may “save” them. But that’s an endless cycle of restrategizing and layoffs. There is no easy answer, no one thing that’s going to magically make audiences find and connect to your work. The secret to success in journalism isn’t a secret at all: Make very good things that people actually want to read and watch. That’s it. That’s all. That’s everything.
Susie Banikarim is editorial director of the Gizmodo Media Group.
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time