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.
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
james Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Joshua Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism