This year, more newsrooms will recognize and address their blind spots. We’ve all got ’em, and if you think you don’t, you’re walking around with toilet paper stuck to your shoe. Here are three categories of blind spots I have and am working on.
First are your red-hot, urgent, and obvious blind spots. Pew has reported once again that journalism gets an F in representation. If we want a C-minus, we have to start immediately — and don’t skip this section if you don’t have any open positions right now, because the work starts well before you’re actually hiring. One million years ago, the inimitable Lam Thuy Vo wrote this guide to building a diverse newsroom. Here’s a CJR one from only half a million years ago.
Why will newsrooms do this in 2019? Maybe because they didn’t do it in 2017 or in 2018. But having a diverse newsroom is part of how you get an honest look at the world, and that’s theoretically what we’re doing here in the news business.
More pressingly (or depressingly), newsrooms will get on it because there’s building public pressure, and because it’s increasingly plain that representation is a huge issue. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it’ll be if the Oscars figure out the importance of diversity before newsrooms do? Come on. Click the guides above! Start now! The Oscars are in March and there’s no telling what they’ll do!
Better reason to start now: It takes time and effort. It took me a couple of years of active work in this department before results started catching up to my intentions.
Then there are your slow-burn, death-by-dogma blind spots — newsrooms have been proudly divorced from their economic engines forever, and much has already been written about this, too. But getting to build a membership program for my newsroom and understanding how and why it worked gave me a new feeling of agency and accomplishment. I was able to align the money with the mission. But first I had to be involved.
More newspaper reporters are tweeting about why people should subscribe. This is a good start, because it’s a first step into the larger world of a more active role in the business model. Whether your newsroom is subscription-based or donation-based, for-profit or nonprofit, you should be following things like the Membership Puzzle Project and the American Press Institute’s research on why people pay for news. Then do what journalists do — combine research and curiosity with determination and civic-mindedness to make an impact.
Why will newsrooms do this in 2019? Well, the other option is going out of business. And that’s gotta go out of style at some point, right?
And there are important blind spots people don’t talk about as much. We in the news industry are notoriously bad at good business practices. Management, training, and company culture. Learning and implementing new processes for getting things done. Testing. Communicating internally.
You know, acting like we’re professionals.
We’ve learned over the years to file right at deadline, then hop to the next story or project. We’re missing processes that should start before and after projects. I should thank media design genius Hong Qu for pointing me to Steve Krug’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy, which was my own first step into learning how and why Denverite’s products worked and didn’t work for our readers. New York Times/Texas Tribune veteran Tim Griggs recommended Amy Jo Kim’s Game Thinking, which is giving me a lot to think about as I try to make our products better for readers and members.
(Reminder: I’m an editor! This advice is for everybody in the newsroom!)
And my colleague Brian Boyer recommended Start With Why by Simon Sinek and Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke. Both have improved the way I think about communicating with my team, making sure we’re working on stuff that is rewarding, building toward a sustainable future and putting colleagues in a position to succeed.
These books, it has to be said, are the kinds of things that most journalists I know recoil from. They’re not written for us, generally speaking. But neither is basically anything you FOIA. Get over it. Get into it.
Why do I think newsrooms will work on all of these things in 2019? I lied! I predict most won’t. Frankly, I bet a lot of people clicked away somewhere in the representation section. But if your newsroom takes action now, I predict it’ll outperform those that don’t.
Dave Burdick is the editor of Denverite.
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”