In the coming year, we’ll see continuing tension between the public and the press over what’s “real” and what’s not. With the president calling journalists in the mainstream media “a stain on America,” it’s safe to say that the “fake news” conversation will persist — and that attacks on the press will, too. It all means that news organizations will have to keep fighting for the trust of a skeptical public, coming up with ways to demonstrate our credibility across all of the platforms on which we publish our journalism.
At Frontline, we believe that one such way is through journalistic transparency. It’s something we’ve long practiced — but now more than ever, we’ve been cracking open our reporting process and offering new, self-directed opportunities to explore, search, and share what goes into building our journalism. As part of our broader Transparency Project initiative, this fall we launched The Putin Files — which made available 56 full-length interviews from the making of Michael Kirk and his team’s documentary, Putin’s Revenge. We published 32 interviews in video alongside transcripts, and 24 interviews in transcript form only — all fully navigable by person, theme, or highlight.
Our goal was not only to make our source material accessible to audiences, but to make it useful. We developed interactive tools that enable readers and viewers to explore annotated transcripts, compare versions of events, and share quotes via social media.
Poynter’s Jim Warren called this endeavor “an admirable move towards transparency.” And while a video and transcript effort like this is unique, there are different efforts at transparency underway at other news organizations — and we hope more will flourish in the year to come. I’m on a new Knight Commission that’s charged with developing ways to deepen public trust in the press and other democratic institutions. Thinking seriously about transparency will be an important part of the equation.
It’s important to note, though, that the burden (and opportunity) of trust-building doesn’t just fall on news organizations, but also on the platforms where people consume our stories. As Emily Bell said earlier this year, “Fake news has become a meaningless and rather dangerous phrase. But the problem of feeling unsure of what to believe and what not to believe, the obliteration of credible brands and the squeezing of all types of content into the same un-delineated window, is very real.” We’ve seen Facebook make moves towards differentiating between verified and unverified stories. Twitter and Google, too. But the problem is massive, and these are just first steps. I hope that in the year to come, media outlets and tech platforms alike will take bigger ones.
Raney Aronson-Rath is executive producer of the PBS investigative documentary series Frontline.
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks