Media trust flows partly from transparency — or so the thinking goes. This coming year will be a good one to test that theory, as news organizations dramatically ramp up their efforts to be more open about how they do what they do, and invest energy in transparency’s broader corollary, news literacy.
Trustworthy news organizations follow pretty similar ethics codes. They clearly identify the sources of their information, to the extent possible. They make timely and prominent corrections; they disclose any conflicts of interest, and they tell people who funds their work.
We’ve been assuming all along that most of our listeners and readers and viewers are aware of the best practices that underpin our work. But this past year, it became increasingly apparent that they aren’t, and they are susceptible to counter-arguments designed to discredit us. So in 2018, after several years of listening to journalism’s sages talk about how important it is that we more explicitly explain our processes, we’re finally going to get serious about doing just that.
These actions may be as straightforward as putting a bug on our work to quickly signal our values to news consumers. Or as elaborate as a six-minute video explaining how a big story came about. Audiences are yearning for this information: Last June, nearly 900 people turned out one evening to hear Colorado Public Radio and NPR journalists talk about media ethics and debate how newsroom decisions are made.
Attitudes change slowly. Trust in media has finally started ticking up, ever so slightly, after years of decline. But views on the subject remain politically polarized. These efforts may go the way fact-checking did this year, and quickly get politicized — and made politically suspect — by some with a vested interest in seeing our institutions fail. But whether or not the polls immediately reward our efforts, what choice is there for journalists who, in the end, just want to report honestly and have their work believed? Add it to the job description; this work is necessary, too.
Elizabeth Jensen is the ombudsman/public editor of NPR.
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for