We get serious about algorithms

“More and more, we’re getting comments from NPR One listeners along the lines of ‘I don’t want personalization, I want the news.’ My answer is, that’s exactly what we are using personalization algorithms to do.”

Algorithms will take their place as editorial tools that support the ethics and values of journalism — not just ways of getting people to listen more, read more, and share our stuff more.

Sure it’s easy to give people what they want in the moment and keep them glued to our content. Just like we humans love a big vat of caramelized popcorn, who doesn’t like stories that represent how we “want” to see the world? Ooo, yummy. At least until you feel sick. This last year of fake news and false narratives brought a wave of nausea to the public and to the media about the dark side of the promise of personalization algorithms.

More and more, we’re getting comments from NPR One listeners along the lines of “I don’t want personalization, I want the news.” My answer is, that’s exactly what we are using personalization algorithms to do.

These algorithms are our modern editorial tools. We need them to control the distribution of our stories.

At NPR One, we use them to make sure our listeners are getting the most up-to-date and relevant stories every time they listen. What do you use yours for? As editorial leaders, we should have a hand in deciding how we will use personalization and to what end. This is the year to be clear about what that end is and make sure our audiences know.

We can bring the same editorial integrity and values to this tool as we do any other tool of the journalistic trade. NPR, like The Washington Post and even Snap, have started using algorithms and personalization to make sure people are getting an expansive view. Instead of only giving people more of the things they like, we can use personalization to bring them multiple points of view or even updates and corrections to things they’ve seen or heard. It’s heartening to see more calls for being responsible and transparent about how we use personalization algorithms so that we hang onto the public’s trust in journalism.

These tools are only going to be a larger force in how we deliver our stories, and this is the year where there should be a wider focus on using personalization to inform, educate, and foster common understanding.

Tamar Charney is managing editor of NPR One.

Nathalie Malinarich   Peak push

Adam Thomas   Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor

Zizi Papacharissi   Women come back

Charo Henríquez   Training is an investment, not an expense

Rodney Gibbs   Tech workers turn to journalism

Dan Shanoff   You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)

John Keefe   Scooped by AI

Corey Johnson   The pro-fact resistance

Burt Herman   Things get real

Evie Nagy   Pivot to mobile video frustration

Nancy Watzman   Know thy TV

Joanne Lipman   Journalists inventing revenue streams

Jared Newman   Venture funding and digital news don’t mix

Helen Havlak   Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds

C.W. Anderson   The social media apocalypse

Neha Gandhi   Filler killers

Alexios Mantzarlis   Moving fake news research out of the lab

Matt DeRienzo   A recession, then a collapse

Joyce Barnathan   It will be harder to bury the news

Jessica Parker Gilbert   Design connects storytelling and strategy

Elizabeth Jensen   Show your work

Ruth Palmer   Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities

Kyle Ellis   Let’s build our way out of this

Nicholas Quah   Stop talking trash about young people

Nikki Usher   The year of The Washington Post

Cory Haik   Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact

Taylor Lorenz   Social and media will split

Usha Sahay   Wallets get opened

Renée Kaplan   The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)

Nicholas Diakopoulos   Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity

Hossein Derakhshan   Television has won

Lam Thuy Vo   Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest

Marie Gilot   No assholes allowed

Sam Sanders   Shine the light on ourselves

Christopher Meighan   Passive partnership is in the rearview

Dannagal G. Young   Stop covering politics as a game

Jennifer Choi   Standing up for us and for each other

Monika Bauerlein   The firehose of falsehood

Daniel Trielli   The rich get richer, the poor scramble

Mary Meehan   Real lives are at stake in rural areas

Cristina Wilson   The year of the Instagram Story

Edward Roussel   Eyes, ears, and brains

Felix Salmon   Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin

Corey Ford   The empire strikes back

Rubina Madan Fillion   Unlocking the potential of AI

Susie Banikarim   R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)

Monique Judge   Letting black women tell their own stories

Basile Simon   We need better career paths for news nerds

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon   Seeking trust in fragmented spaces

Jim Brady   With the people, not just of the people

Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy   Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism

Luke O'Neil   The end is already here

Sarah Marshall   Loyalty as the key performance indicator

Caitria O'Neill   The new court of public opinion

Andrew Ramsammy   The year ownership mattered

Andrew Haeg   The year journalists become relationship builders

Raju Narisetti   Mirror, mirror on the wall

Trushar Barot   The Jio-fication of India

Federica Cherubini   The rise of bridge roles in news organizations

Manoush Zomorodi   Self-help as a publishing strategy

Julia Beizer   A longer view on the pivot

Mariana Moura Santos   Think local, act global

Imaeyen Ibanga   Longform video leads the way

Eric Ulken   The year local publishers get smart(er) about change

Brian Lam   Sketchy ethics around product reviews

David Skok   Finding an information-life balance

Umbreen Bhatti   The trust problem isn’t new

Kawandeep Virdee   Zines had it right all along

Kristen Muller   The year of the voter

Amie Ferris-Rotman   More female reporters abroad (please)

Sydette Harry   Listen to your corner and watch for the hook

Jesse Holcomb   Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you

Mandy Velez   texting is lit rn, fam

Joanne McNeil   Gatekeeping the gatekeepers

Sara M. Watson   Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters

Borja Echevarría   TV goes digital, digital goes TV

Niketa Patel   Live journalism comes of age

Emma Carew Grovum   Newsroom culture becomes a priority

Juleyka Lantigua   Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time

Sue Schardt   Jump the niche

Sally Lehrman   Trust comes first

Jamie Mottram   From pageviews to t-shirts

Amy King   Let’s amplify visual voice

Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán   The editorial meeting of the future

Vivian Schiller   Pivot to tomorrow

Justin Kosslyn   The year journalists become digital security experts

Errin Haines   At the ballot, it’s time to count black women

Paul Ford   Go global

Jake Levine   The return to now

José Zamora   Revenue-first journalism

Hannah Cassius   The year of the echo-chamber escapists

Rachel Davis Mersey   AI, with real smarts

Laura E. Davis   Writing answers before you know the question

Tanya Cordrey   Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention

Feli Sánchez   The year for guerrilla user research

Richard Tofel   The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention

Rick Berke   Value is the watchword

Jennifer Coogan   The future is female

Amy Webb   Listen to weak signals

Emily Goligoski   Looking beyond news for inspiration

Carlos Martínez de la Serna   The new journalism commons

Alan Soon   The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media

Caitlin Thompson   Podcasting models mature and diversify

Yvonne Leow   The rise of video messaging

Molly de Aguiar   Good journalism won’t be enough

Pete Brown   Push alerts, personalized

Mary Walter-Brown   Show a little vulnerability

Sam Ford   The year of investing in processes

Matt Carlson   Attacks on the press will get worse

Ståle Grut   Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks

Miguel Castro   The arrival of the impact producer

Pia Frey   Address users as individuals

Alastair Coote   The year of self-improvement

Debra Adams Simmons   And a woman shall lead them

Rachel Schallom   Better design helps differentiate opinion and news

Heather Bryant   Building the ecosystems for collaboration

Kathleen McElroy   Building a news video experience native to mobile

Frédéric Filloux   External forces

Tracie Powell   The muting of underserved voices

Julia B. Chan   Looking for loyalty in all the right places

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen   The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms

Andrew Losowsky   The year of resilience

Matt Thompson   Here come the attention managers

Jarrod Dicker   Honesty in advertising

Matt Boggie   The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea

Mike Caulfield   Refactoring media literacy for the networked age

Michelle Ferrier   The year of the great reckoning

Will Sommer   The year local media gets conservative

Alice Antheaume   Are you fluent in AI?

Michelle Garcia   Navigating journalistic transparency

Nushin Rashidian   Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives

Doris Truong   Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes

Claire Wardle   Disinformation gets worse

Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer   Skepticism and narcissism

Kelsey Proud   No, no, no

Lanre Akinola   Making noise is not a strategy

Alfred Hermida   Going beyond mobile-first

An Xiao Mina   Memes and visuals come to the fore

Dan Newman   A return to trust

Damon Krukowski   Reviving the alt-weekly soul

P. Kim Bui   The reckoning is only beginning

Mario García   Storytelling finally adapts to mobile

Craig Newmark   Working together toward sustainable solutions

Dheerja Kaur   Fun with subscription products

Carrie Brown-Smith   Transparency finally takes off

Ernst-Jan Pfauth   Publishing less to give readers more

Mariano Blejman   News games rule

Ariana Tobin   Too tired to tap

Jacqui Cheng   Retailers move into content

Steve Grove   The midterms are an opportunity

Aron Pilhofer   We can’t leave the business to the business side any more

Francesco Marconi   The year of machine-to-machine journalism

Bill Keller   A growing turn to philanthropy

Mi-Ai Parrish   Blockchain and trust

Raney Aronson-Rath   Transparency is the antidote to fake news

Vanessa K. DeLuca   Women’s voices take center stage

Kinsey Wilson   Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up

Kim Fox   Audience teams diversify their approach

Tamar Charney   We get serious about algorithms

Mira Lowe   The year of the local watchdog

Jim Moroney   Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for

Lucas Graves   From algorithms to institutions

Jassim Ahmad   Thriving on change

Almar Latour   Conquering calm

Tim Carmody   Watch out for Spotify

Ray Soto   VR reaches the next level

Gordon Crovitz   Serving readers over advertisers

Cindy Royal   Your journalism curriculum is obsolete

Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg   (Hint: It’s about your brand)

Rodney Benson   Better, less read, and less trusted

Michael Kuntz   The only pivot that might work

Juliette De Maeyer   A responsible press criticism

S. Mitra Kalita   The arc of news and audience

Eric Nuzum   Beyond the narrative arc

Pablo Boczkowski   The rise of skeptical reading

Tanzina Vega   It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic