A few weeks ago, I found myself in a restaurant underneath the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square of Kiev. I was talking to Taras, the impressive founder of a new type of local news organization that seems to be doing everything right. At the center of their strategy, he told me, is audience trust and community engagement. They deliver the right stories at the right time in the right format. Working closely with local businesses, they may have even cracked the revenue model in an exceptionally tough advertising and regulatory market.
What I witnessed in Taras is something I’ve seen time and again throughout 2017: an unparalleled openness. A willingness for people in journalism to connect and honestly share experiences, good and bad, that might further the industry.
With that, I see an opportunity in 2018 to turn the informal sharing we see in conversations like this into something more substantive through mentorships.
The media is under fire like never before. At the same time, this is what the European media innovation ecosystem looks like right now:
To help sustain this new landscape, new funding is coming online with the emergence of venture capital hubs like Next Media Accelerator, the continuation of Google’s Digital News Initiative, and increased interest from donors like the Omidyar Network and the Philanthropic Alliance for Solidarity and Democracy in Europe.
In 2018, the experiences of these new initiatives will be the catalyst for even more innovation. Mentorships are essential to accelerate these connections. As an industry, and as individuals, we’re realizing that we need to invest in organizational change, personal growth, and the human connections that will get us there. Mentorships add structure and value to the informal sharing of ideas we experience at conferences and in Slack channels.
Without more structure, all the learning experienced by these various groups will remain siloed (and their monetary investments unfulfilled). Successful entrepreneurs will take vital experience into closed commercial settings. Startups won’t achieve sustainability or exit. Entrepreneurs will fail and quit, newsrooms won’t leverage innovation from within, and students will graduate being unable to find employment.
In 2018, we will see more training programmes, grants, and workshops with knowledge exchange and leadership support at the core. The value of mentorships is already being demonstrated through programs and ideas from our friends at the Knight Foundation, Poynter Institute, ICIJ, Code4Africa, News Integrity Initiative, Google News Lab, Euractiv, Next Journalism Prize, Hamburg Media School, and the Media Lab Bayern. Our own News Impact Academy, Journalism Grants, and Engaged Journalism Accelerator are being calibrated to feature mentorship at the heart of what they do.
We will also see mentorship happen outside of these programs. The best thing about this quiet revolution is that anyone can do it. It starts with an invitation to coffee, a Twitter DM, or a quick question over email. Start with people you know. Connect with people who you can help too, and who will find it a beneficial and rewarding experience. Reach out, explain what you want from the relationship, and take it from there.
Of all the things I’ve done this year, kickstarting my own mentoring relationships, both as mentor and mentee, has been the most rewarding. I’ve visited over 20 countries this year, and from Kiev to Krakow, Berlin to Brussels, and Riga to Rome, the challenges we share unite us. Geopolitics and polarization and advertising markets might vary, but the value in sharing experiences, failures, and victories remains.
Leading any part of an organization in this climate is really hard. If 2018 proves to be anything like 2017, we’re all going to need someone to talk to. If you don’t already have a mentor, 2018 will be the year you get one.
Adam Thomas is director of the European Journalism Centre.
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Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
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Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
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Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
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Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
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Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
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Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
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Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
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Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
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Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
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Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
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Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
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Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
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