2019 will be the year we look to more unusual places outside of journalism for inspiration and collaboration.
We’ve learned from software development practices as we transform from newspapers, radio, and TV stations into digital media companies. This has brought audience analytics, project management, and A/B testing into newsrooms.
But as even the biggest tech companies are starting to discover, there are larger issues than just how to reach, monetize, and retain users. How do we convene civic spaces, or ones that further human connection? What motivates learning and curiosity, to ward against disinformation? How do we study and change our own organizational cultures?
These are questions for journalism that technology does not have the answers for. So we must look to adjacent fields: game design, ethnography, theater development, and others. These disciplines have relevant research, tools, and crucially, people who want to help journalism survive and thrive.
Here are some paths to explore in 2019:
What can we learn from public arts about how to connect, represent, and convene communities? How do we move beyond journalism that “targets” and “reaches out to” pre-existing communities, to journalism that builds communities?
Public arts organisations have long grappled with similar questions. For example, Claire Doherty came up with “The New Rules of Public Art” to challenge how public art is commissioned and created.
What can we learn from game designers about how people become curious and interested, learn, and remain in flow? For example, by drawing from the insights Celia Hodent used in teaching more than 200 million people how to play Fortnite through designing the in-game tutorial.
What can we learn about the digital transformation of newsrooms from policy researchers studying how practices are formed and can be changed?
AnneMarie Dorland, at the University of Calgary’s Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, once reminded me that incentives only affect the activities and performance of work. Changing the social practice of work (e.g. changing what it means to “write” a story when text isn’t primary) requires reassembling the practice itself.
What can we learn from artists about conveying emotional truths that drive human decision-making? In a world of growing tribalism and skepticism about reported facts, helping people understand the world increasingly means helping people understand others’ feelings as well as their reasoning.
Can we learn from and work with poets, musicians, and theater makers to present journalism through poetry readings, music videos, and live performances?
What can we learn about ethnographic techniques from cultural anthropologists like Mike Youngblood to further our reporting skills? For example, the use of observational research techniques to quickly create data sets when doing in-the-field reporting. Or how sociologist Sam Ladner makes consistent effort to return to her field notes to reduce and synthesise them, making them more useful over time.
As subscription and membership models become more popular, what can we learn from sports teams and churches about building, supporting, and growing a loyal following?
What can we learn from fashion designers about our role and responsibilities in shaping people’s self-identity? People buy and carry the Financial Times newspaper in public in the same way they wear clothes to express and communicate who they are. But what about in digital and online spaces?
As conferences and events become a growing revenue source, they also become an opportunity to establish deeper connections with our audience. What can we learn from experience designers about how to create transformative and meaningful social encounters?
What can we learn about rebuilding trust in the media from people who work in conflict resolution and mediation?
What can we learn from librarians, architects, and museum curators about how we design the information architecture and “user journeys” of our news apps and websites?
We enriched our journalism when we invited programmers, digital designers, and data analysts into newsrooms. Along the way, we coined the term “news nerds” to describe people who work at the intersection of journalism and technology.
We now face different challenges and need help from people with different expertise. It’s time we expanded the definition of “news nerds” to also include people working at the intersection of journalism and art, education, organizational design, and many other disciplines.
Robin Kwong is head of digital delivery at the Financial Times.
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust