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“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.”

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

Neha Gandhi   Filler killers

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

Almar Latour   Conquering calm

Dan Newman   A return to trust

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

Burt Herman   Things get real

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

John Keefe   Scooped by AI

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

Ariana Tobin   Too tired to tap

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

Paul Ford   Go global

Jassim Ahmad   Thriving on change

Nancy Watzman   Know thy TV

Susie Banikarim   R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)

Marie Gilot   No assholes allowed

Mandy Velez   texting is lit rn, fam

Molly de Aguiar   Good journalism won’t be enough

Usha Sahay   Wallets get opened

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

Kelsey Proud   No, no, no

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

Nathalie Malinarich   Peak push

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

Sue Schardt   Jump the niche

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

Hossein Derakhshan   Television has won

Jake Levine   The return to now