The 2018 elections in Brazil provided a preview of the scenario journalism can expect to face in 2019. Electoral campaigns, especially that of the president-elected Jair Bolsonaro, accelerated a disintermediation process characteristic of the social internet. The maxim that information has less need for traditional mediators to circulate was decisively evident, shaking the already weakened credibility of journalism.
Benefiting from a scenario of polarization, intolerance, and aggressiveness, the end-to-end connection principle established a reality often oblivious to facts. In this new ecosystem, political actors present the scenarios that interest them most. On the other end, the audience receives a narrative that best represents their way of thinking. All this bypasses journalism and its mediating role.
The communication strategies of the transitional government and its attitude towards the press don’t just demonstrate a further aggravation of this 2018 reality — they also indicate a trend that transcends political journalism.
In 2019, it will be the role of journalism to pay attention to this modus operandi. Exposing the entrails of social platforms will be crucial. But it will not be enough to once again convince society our work is important. To respond to disintermediation, journalism will need to deepen its relationship with audiences. This will mean not only to understand them better; it will be critical for us to see that the audience increasingly understands the contradictions of our practices. The answer to this mistrust will be to increase transparency and invest more in diversity and collaboration.
For the third time, Farol Jornalismo and the Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (Abraji, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism) invited journalists and researchers to forecast journalism in the upcoming year. Challenged to think about 2019 with the dust of the election season still unsettled, the authors of a special issue of O jornalismo no Brasil outlined a framework that considers the complex scenario 2018 leaves us. The horizon is one of great challenges, but also great opportunities. To take advantage of them, however, waking up is key.
Perhaps the greatest example of the dichotomy between challenges and opportunities lies in what we understand as credibility. The journalist and researcher Sílvia Lisboa argues it’s not enough for a journalistic vehicle to claim to be credible — credibility built in one way only is nothing but a marketing strategy; it needs to be demonstrated in such a way that it can be perceived by the audience.
One possibility to ensure this perception, according to Lisboa, is for the vehicle to be more transparent about their funding and their attitude towards the facts. Another one is for journalism to “get out of the trap of being a mere reflection of the cultural wars that spring up in the underground of the internet and seek to set an agenda that reconciles with the pillars of modern ideals,” according to the journalist and researcher Rosane Borges.
Transparency also permeates the reflection of the journalist and editor of Projeto Comprova, Sérgio Lüdtke, on misinformation. Facing an ecosystem marked by bubbles that get thicker and thicker, in order to contain misinformation, it’s imperative that current fact-checking efforts are maintained. But it will not be enough for journalists to keep exposing the problem. It will be necessary to convince people that the journalistic narrative seeks the common good. For this, journalism needs a “new contract of trust with society.”
This new contract involves a greater effort to get to know the public. In the case of fact-checking, the Filtro Fact-Checking journalist and researcher Taís Seibt suggests the adoption of formats that better converse with the environments where Brazilians usually get information. She believes that video or audio checks may be more likely to succeed on WhatsApp, for example.
In relation to the journalism performed away from the urban cores, the researcher Claudia Nonato pointed out the challenge of understanding the concerns of the part of the population that voted for Jair Bolsonaro. Being almost always of a progressive bias, journalistic initiatives that seek to give visibility to lower classes will need to adapt their strategies to approach and support these people, although without leaving aside the ethical standards that regulate the profession.
Diversity strategies will also be important for journalism in 2019. Researcher Gean Gonçalves indicates the possibility of Brazilian newsrooms adopting gender editors, as El País and The New York Times did this year. It’s also up to journalism, Gonçalves points out, to be aware of the pressure that groups of women and LGBT people may apply when facing the policies of the new government, as well as to “monitor and report on violations that may get worse and affect those communities more harmfully.”
Surveilling Bolsonaro’s steps will also guide the efforts of journalism in the Amazon forest. Journalist Elaíze Farias draws attention to the difficulties of acting independently in that strategic region, far from the economic and political center of the country. To fight the subservience that rules devastation, coverage will need to embrace the complexity of the Amazon, leaving aside stereotypes and buzzwords.
The challenge to be faced by journalism in the Amazon is not only narrative but also economic. The lack of resources doesn’t strangle journalism only in the north; across the entire country, local journalism suffers from broken business models that render innovation impossible, according to Sérgio Spagnuolo, editor of the Volt Data Lab and coordinator of the Atlas da Notícia project. The distance from the journalism produced in large cities increases, and so does disintermediation. Without news organizations capable of covering small- and medium-sized cities, their populations are left at the mercy of misinformation.
One of the solutions, in terms of business, may be what Patrícia Gomes, product director at JOTA, calls “journalytics.” Looking closely at the data generated by the users may be a way of getting to know them better. Adapting journalistic products to the behavior of those who consume them will help reestablish a relationship of trust between journalism and its public.
In 2019, Brazilian journalism will need to rediscover its public. And in finding them again, it will need to disarm itself. “The credibility crisis that the press lives today must more and more contribute to journalists getting out of their fort and asking their readers what it is that makes them not trust what they read in the professional press,” writes Guilherme Amado, reporter of Globo and Época.
The assurance of journalism’s role as a relevant social mediator will depend on this reunion. Because in order to win the War on Truth, The Guardians — Time’s 2018 Person of the Year — will need the public by their side.
Moreno Cruz Osório is cofounder of Farol Jornalismo.
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
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Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
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Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
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Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
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Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
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Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
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Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
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Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
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A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
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Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
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Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
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Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
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Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
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An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
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Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
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Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
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Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
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Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
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Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
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Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
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Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
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Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
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Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
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Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
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Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
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Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
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