In 2018, we’ll commit to working hard to earn the trust of our audiences every single day — I hope, anyway.
Here’s what else I hope: that in doing so, we’ll commit to working just as hard to avoid centering a few loud voices at the expense of others. This year, we’ve frequently seen our leaders, from the president on down, discourage trust in news media. Recent surveys suggest it’s had an impact.
But the reality is that many people — take African Americans and Muslims, as examples — have long had reason to be skeptical of our industry’s ability and, frankly, desire to reflect their lives and their communities fairly, with accuracy and nuance. And they’ve been telling us that. If we lose sight of them in our panic over where we find ourselves today, we risk flattening critical differences between the reasons for distrust, and correspondingly, the actions we can take to address it. Worse, we risk abandoning our efforts as soon as the political winds shift.
We’ve come a long way from the days of viewing our audiences as a monolith, with a singular set of concerns. Let’s not go back to that in 2018.
Umbreen Bhatti is the director of the KQED Lab, the northern California public media organization’s innovation lab.
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more