Late this year, we saw strong evidence that consumers quickly and willingly substitute news apps for Facebook in the case that Facebook is unavailable (and similar evidence for other platforms). That makes for an opportunity as publishers’ relationship with the platforms evolves.
With Facebook traffic on the decline, a steady stream of bad news about the effects of social media on society, and no major new platform emerging for engaging with news readers, publishers will need to work hard to own their audiences rather than building audience on distributed platforms.
From those publishers who succeed, I suspect we’ll see an enhanced focus on two things:
Josh Schwartz is chief of product, engineering, and data science at Chartbeat.
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Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
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Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
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Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
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Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
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Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
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Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
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Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
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Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
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Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
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Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
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Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
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Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
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