The relationship between publishers of news and the digital platforms (especially Facebook and Google) has been fraught for almost a decade. The platforms, leveraging their sheer scale, have seized ever-greater shares of digital advertising revenue and contributed mightily to the collapse of advertising prices by stimulating the supply of advertising opportunities at a rate faster than the demand for it could ever grow. At the same time, the platforms have also driven huge amounts of traffic to the publishers — accentuating the paradox of growing audiences accompanied by falling profits.
All of this may well approach a crisis point in the year ahead. The crisis, if there is one building, began with the revelations, just after the election, of how the platforms, and especially Facebook, had been employed by the Russian government and the Trump campaign, possibly in collusion, to disseminate what has come to be called “fake news.” But the problem goes beyond that.
It is increasingly clear that the operation of the platforms, both from an antitrust perspective and even more importantly from the perspective of democratic governance, has received remarkably little scrutiny. And it seems unfortunately also true that their executives, particularly at Facebook, feel very little impulse for accountability until confronted publicly.
This all puts enormous pressure on journalists to do their job in holding these enormous enterprises to the standards of decency, legality, and democratic practice that we are all entitled to expect of the nation’s most profitable companies. Some work of this sort is being done. We need more. Journalists would do well to recognize the commercial impulses limiting such inquiries — and not to let that deter them. For the sake of all of us, moreover, they need to do this work before it is too late.
Richard J. Tofel is president of ProPublica.
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
L. Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Richard J. Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news