My prediction is that 2018 will be the year of quiet adjustments.
Sound uninspiring…or, actually, manageable and focused? Worrisomely workaday…or maybe a strategy for planning ahead for a news ecosystem in which continual change is business as usual?
If 2016 was sobering — a double-digit drop in print ad revenues, peak anti-platform sentiment, the migration of the large majority of digital ad revenue to Google and Facebook, among other disruptions — then 2017 was arguably chastening. The pivot to video peaked and crashed. VC-fueled digital pure-players lost their luster, missing revenue targets, and following up with layoffs (BuzzFeed, Mashable). The year of Trump, Brexit, and growing populism all across Europe has — this is a reductive shortcut, but all those were driving external factors — forced a turning point on the platforms, which have started evolving, grudgingly, into institutions with social accountability, even as more people that ever before are consuming their news on platforms. The fake news phenomenon has transformed the very identity of news media and their role as trustworthy gatekeepers that had been taken for granted. Those are just a few of this past year’s disruptions.
But because of (or despite) all that, the past few years in the news media ecosystem have also been a flurry of often radical innovation in newsrooms. Powered by results-driven methodologies, full of experiments and outcomes and metrics, it has been transformative. But it has also been exhausting and, for some newsrooms, exhaustive. They may be reaching the natural end of an intense cycle of constant testing-and-learning, even as newsroom restructuring continues. The New York Times just announced its second reorganization in as many years of their audience team, The Washington Post this past summer announced a series of new digital strategy and editorial innovation roles, and here at the Financial Times, we are creating a new newsroom team, led by my colleague Robin Kwong, head of digital delivery, that is defining new digital strategy roles. If this is the start of a new cycle of innovation, what comes next?
It may be that 2018 will be…chill.
I’m kidding. But not entirely. If 2017 reached peak innovation strategizing, pivoting, and iterating, then 2018 may very well be the year of pause, pare back, and hyper-focus. It is a year that could look something like this in newsrooms:
Let’s get really good at the engagement strategies that we now know work.
Let’s try to talk about innovation (always? Only ever?) coupled with sustainability: This thing that we wan to try — what is the lasting change it could bring about? For whom? And what is its value to that audience?
Let’s reassure audiences and not wow them or blow them away — or let’s make the former the priority and the latter the really-nice-to-have. It’s not the end of delight, but let’s focus on sustainable satisfaction.
Let’s prove our value to audiences in everything we do. In other words, let’s make everything we do something worth paying for.
Let’s give away less journalism for free (fewer clicks on Google, less free stuff on social), but let’s offer more ways to pay for it — not just onsite, but offsite — and with a greater variety of products. Maybe not all audiences should be paying the same amount for the same product, or be offered the same products. Let’s anticipate their willingness to pay and offer personalized pricing to go with personalized content.
Let’s change the subject from fake news and trust, and let’s start talking instead about strategies to anticipate our audience’s needs, using AI to understand their habits and preferences even better than they themselves consciously do. Let’s help them understand what they find most useful in what we offer and develop more efficient ways to help them find it.
Let’s ask audiences to tell us what they think, and let’s remember to let them know that we actually listened.
All of which quietly builds trust and loyalty, without asking for it. Quiet revolutions are sometimes the most radical.
Renée Kaplan is head of audience engagement at the Financial Times.
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience