I’m professionally and temperamentally ill-disposed to making predictions. It takes all I have to focus and report without being overwhelmed by the needs of my community and the chaos in our world. To keep me focused, I’m using a kind of textual talisman right now. In the hope that these words might be helpful to other local journalists this is what I want to offer instead of a prediction: just a hope that we can “live simply in a complex world.”
My priest and friend Phil Cooke said this recently in mass. Actually, he said “We are forced to live simply in a complex world.”
Forced or not, I do want to simplify in my work. I’m trying to be honest about what really matters about what we do as journalists and stop caring about the rest. I know this is easier for me than for others. I still care deeply and I still have a job. There are journalists at the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press who will spend their holidays this year deciding whether to retire early, take a buyout, or wait for layoffs because our industry is a mess. This sucks.
Those of us still willing and able to show up for work in between competing dumpster fires have to pick and choose what to try to salvage and where to focus. It’s not easy.
I heard this call to live simply in the middle of complexity in my neighborhood Catholic church. I was brought up in this tradition but not in this parish, which I joined three years ago and where I contribute to committees and potlucks and sit with my mom in a pew almost every Sunday. But I don’t believe in God and I’ve never had time for the Catholic Church as an institution.
However improbable, it’s still true that I find meaning in my church. It is limited by the faith tradition it represents but I’m proud of parishioners and priests for refusing to be brought down by hierarchy, stale ceremony, and most of all judgement. We’re trying to right the wrongs of our history instead of double down. That’s what I want I want for us in local journalism too.
What do we have that is of real value to the places we live? Is it the information or the access we can demand of officials? It might be expertise or the connections we can facilitate. It could be attention to an abuse of power or something else entirely.
Let’s force ourselves to focus on just this value. Then let’s force ourselves to redistribute that value instead of keeping it for ourselves. Like Bettina Chang sharing her editorial skills with whomever stops by City Bureau’s open office hours; Spaceship Media helping shrink the distance between communities in conflict; the Tyler Loop asking a young and diverse Tyler what they need to know; Free Press organizing New Jersey to demand better information; VT Digger; Hearken; Project Facet; Flint Beat; KPCC; and so many more stripping down to what matters most where they live. Second only to Detroiters, these are the people I believe in.
Simplify and redistribute: That’s what I hope for all of us in local journalism this coming year.
Sarah Alvarez is lead reporter and founder of Outlier Media, a news and information service for low-income Detroiters.
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Greg Emerson Power to the user
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
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
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced