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.
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women