I hope 2019 won’t be the year that fact-checkers give up from exhaustion.
They are understandably tired. Despite fact-checking Donald Trump for nearly a decade (the first PolitiFact check of his birther claims was published in 2011), his extraordinary run of whoppers and Pants on Fires and four-Pinocchio claims shows no signs of slowing.
He’s like an indestructible monster in a Godzilla movie. The authorities keep firing at him, but he just keeps walking through town, gaining power.
The fact-checkers have tried every weapon they’ve got: Lie of the Year, Whoppers of the Year and even running lists of thousands of his falsehoods. They’ve created new ones, like The Washington Post Fact Checker’s new Bottomless Pinocchio, which is reserved for false claims that have been repeated more than 20 times. Fittingly, only one politician qualifies: Trump.
(Also quite fitting: The Bottomless Pinocchio was introduced on the front page of The Washington Post’s print edition next to a story about Russian propaganda.)
But despite the new weapons, Trump storms on, leaving the truth in tatters.
Looking ahead to 2019, fact-checkers shouldn’t be deterred by his persistence nor by his bogus claims of “fake news.” They should continue to check everything he says and look for more ways to innovate. News organizations should consider:
Bill Adair is Knight Professor of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.
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Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
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Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
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Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
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Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
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Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
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Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
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Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
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Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
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M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
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Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
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Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
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