Newsrooms are fairly static workplaces where jobs don’t change that often — as opposed to tech companies where new teams get spun up more liberally, and where (often odd) job titles and responsibilities seem to be handed out more creatively.
These career and personal questions haven’t come up too often in recent years, but next year the managers of digital teams will find themselves having to think about how to develop their staff and handle less common aspirations: making work fit better within larger life goals, moving from tech skills to more writing and reporting, and more.
As the CAR/interactive journalism field matures, news nerds around the world continue to hone their tech skills, which have become essential in modern digital news organizations.
These skills are their ticket to the front seat of all of the big events and stories — whether a general election or a large investigative series. Coder-journalists’ ability to produce original digital journalism has made them pivotal elements of many newsrooms, often being relied upon much more quickly than, say, a graduate trainee.
Next year, news nerds will ask themselves the question: “Career-wise, what is my next move?”
With advanced technical skills being in high demand, it’s easy to be pigeonholed into certain types of roles — and hard to move away from them. In addition to this, more senior roles within newsroom don’t exist yet, leaving news nerds with a conundrum: Does moving forward in your career mean abandoning some of the very talents that brought you there?
This relatively new breed of people seems to be stuck in the same dilemma between being a writer or an editor — some journalists shouldn’t become editors as they’d be wasted not writing, but that path is nonetheless the only one leading to more responsibilities and a higher income. And as often for interactive journalists, it’s not all media paradigms: Developers and programmers seem to agonize in similar ways over being promoted away from what they do best — writing code and building things.
Can newsrooms deliver career development paths, or would news nerds have to look for opportunities elsewhere and hide some of their skills in order to access more editorial positions? Can we create incentives for newsrooms and managers to create these paths and help people grow professionally? And what should we teach journalism graduates on this topic?
Basile Simon is a coder-journalist at The Times and Sunday Times and a lecturer at City University, London.
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Sam Sanders Shine the light on ourselves
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
An Xiao Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Mi-Ai Parrish Blockchain and trust
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Pablo Boczkowski The rise of skeptical reading
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Mariano Blejman News games rule