There’s a marvelous mock newsreel near the start of Citizen Kane, the thinly veiled send-up of the life and times of William Randolph Hearst. The narrator begins: “Kane’s empire, in its glory, held dominion over 37 newspapers, 13 magazines, a radio network. An empire upon an empire. The first of grocery stores, paper mills, apartment buildings, factories, forests, ocean-liners — an empire through which for 50 years flowed, in an unending stream, the wealth of the earth’s third-richest gold mine.”
Now, 77 years after Citizen Kane’s premiere, Jeff Bezos is among the “first of” grocery stores — as are the Koch brothers of forests and paper mills and the Trump family of apartment buildings. The names and businesses may have changed, but powerful men and women are still compelled to defend, attack, or attempt to influence the news industry in the interest of free speech, business advantage, or political influence.
And while no longer the domain of the press baron, what we once called the American “newspaper chain” lives on in one form or another. It’s worth asking how long this will remain the case, what good these chains do for the communities they purport to serve, and — perhaps most important — what will replace them. With at least one major newspaper group on the block, 2019 may be a decisive year in the evolution of the U.S. newspaper chain. There’s also reason for optimism that a new form of local news industry collaboration has begun to take shape, this time at the intersection of community, philanthropy, and technology more than power, politics, or personality.
Let’s take a step back before looking forward. There was a reason that newspaper chains were built. Chains provided economies of scale in paper, printing, distribution, and access to capital. When they worked well, they also attracted and nurtured news and management talent. Where newspaper chains faltered was in investing effectively in their future, especially in the development of scalable digital news or advertising technology.
Despite it all, some news chains survive to serve investors by serving their communities. I’m one of many in our business rooting for McClatchy to acquire Tribune Publishing, in part because the former is run by a dedicated journalist with strong digital chops, and — full disclosure — a long-time Wall Street Journal colleague and friend of mine. Other newspaper groups seem designed to leech money from their news operations until they succumb to a slow and ignoble death. While outrage has subsided over staff reductions by Digital First Media at The Denver Post, The Mercury News, and other once-sizable newsrooms, it’s hard to believe that these stories will end well.
No matter how one handicaps a given newspaper or its owner, there’s little doubt that the economies of chain ownership are dwindling if not already largely extinct. In their place is emerging a broad array of innovative news, technology, and philanthropic collaboratives, each designed to build scale without the chains, pun intended. And this is where it gets exciting. Consider these efforts now planned for 2019: Each has in common expertise, access to capital, aspirations for meaningful scale, and a dedication to high-quality local news and the communities it serves:
So is it just downhill sledding from here? (That’s a Rosebud allusion, for anyone who missed it.) Hardly. But these partnerships are emblematic of a healthy trend in which we should all invest our energy and/or our money. While it may not be right to dub John Thornton and Elizabeth Green (The American Journalism Project), Richard Gingras and Kinsey Wilson (Google News Initiative, WordPress), Alberto Ibargüen and Jennifer Preston (Knight Foundation), or Richard Tofel and Steve Engelberg (ProPublica) latter-day Citizen Kanes, surely they qualify in spades for the “Citizen” part.
Thanks to these efforts and others, there’s an opportunity in 2019 to invest more money, technical and business resources, and yes, more citizenship back into local journalism. As his prep-school buddy Jedediah Leland says to Charles Foster Kane about the publisher’s high-minded declaration of principles: “I have a hunch it might turn out to be something pretty important.”
Jim Friedlich is executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession