Media wants your attention. You’re getting value too, but mostly it cares about the attention. We’re well informed, but there’s also all these other side effects. I have illustrated them here:
This is unhealthy. Readers are flattened into the need to be informed and entertained, ignoring the rest of the self. Media companies are finding fresh ways to create value by taking into account more of the reader’s needs. Recently there have been inspiring examples of media that wants to take care of you. This is something we really need in the world right now.
Girls Night In is a newsletter for women that arrives every Friday morning with self-care tips, making it feel okay to stay in and take care of yourself. #100DaysofAndNotOr by katie zhu is a series that explores “the seemingly opposing facets of life, relationships, and identity” and in many ways is immenself validating and illuminating of personal experiences.
Last year I wrote about zines, a format that is rich with material on care. A few highlights I’ve found over the year including Couldn’t Afford Therapy by Lawrence Lindell and A Guide to Writing Yourself by Victoria Emanuela and Caitlin Metz.
Anecdotally, it feels as if The New York Times’ Smarter Living has been appearing more frequently on the homepage. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case: It’s an important balance to everything we’re reading in the news. Look at this stunning animation.
To inform readers means to also support readers’ care for themselves. In 2019, we’ll have more:
Kawandeep Virdee works on product at Medium.
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
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
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good