2016 was a journalism nightmare, with the missed story on the U.S. election and rampant misinformation. 2017 was a rebuilding year, with brave reporting on sexual harassment showing journalism’s impact, and healthy subscription growth at top organizations like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Next year, 2018, is when things gets real. Despite the promising momentum, this easily can go sideways. This is the year that we need to solidify business models and make real steps to improve news product. No pressure or anything — it’s just the fate of our democracy on the line.
Ads haven’t been cutting it for a while, and we know a major part of the business model answer is getting the people who use our product to pay for it. This isn’t the time to be timid in closing the sale. Subscriptions and memberships are gaining traction, and 2018 needs to be a year with more business model experimentation.
One of the more interesting attempts will be around cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. This isn’t about the hype around Bitcoin’s soaring value, but building new currencies around trust and authenticity using an open, transparent platform. Civil is one such experiment set to launch early in 2018 that will be closely watched.
On the product side, we’ve refined the basic story forms and are getting the hang of podcasts and newsletters. Now this needs to get truly interactive. One of the hottest new media products is HQ, the interactive trivia show mobile app. How can journalism apply the lessons from that format to create exciting live experiences, and give tangible benefits to users for knowing the facts?
We need to use the convening power of media to build network effects, where products get better the more people that use them. Galley, an app in private beta that’s like a Slack team for media geeks launched by Josh Young, has begun testing whether closed, niche networks can build more constructive interactions than the dreaded comment box. Such experiments will expand next year to other niches and formats.
We need to think smartly about how to leverage algorithms and machine learning, and see how they can help source stories and present them. One interesting experiment is Vigilant (which we’re funding at the Lenfest Institute), making public data more accessible and understandable. Their local pilot in Philadelphia is just getting started and they will be expanding trials early in the new year.
Journalists will also be working more smartly. The Washington Post’s Arc platform will be much more widely adopted in the new year. Some of Arc’s most interesting features provide internal metrics that track how journalists are meeting deadlines and whether they are publishing the right stories when audiences want to read them. Media organizations will also working yet more collaboratively. Platforms like Heather Bryant’s Project Facet, launching soon in beta (and another Lenfest grantee), will test whether better tools foster more collaborative storytelling projects.
2018: We can do this.
Burt Herman is director of innovation projects at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places