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