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