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