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