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Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete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