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