More information curation. Not long ago, I would not have believed anyone would pay a monthly subscription for an app that coached them on how to sit still every day. I don’t need an app for that, thank you very much.
And yet, the top 10 mindfulness and meditation apps, which make up most of the “self-care” app category, reportedly brought in $27 million in worldwide revenue in the first quarter of 2018 alone. I have six meditation apps on my phone right now. And I predict that what tech has done for mindfulness, it will attempt to do for our information overload and misinformation problems.
While there are a handful of very good digital reading tools (Pocket, Flipboard, Kindle), the next wave of products will be built to deliver a better news consumption experiences. Some versions are already out there: the beta of the Kinzen app aims to”give every citizen a daily news experience that earns their trust”; I see ads for SmartNews wherever I go; and although Civil’s attempt at launching a crypto-economy for journalism failed, the startup plans to release a WordPress plugin that gives its vetted network of publications the option to archive their work on the Ethereum blockchain. I’ll save the debate over whether blockchain publishing is useful for another post, but some believe doing so can serve as a mark of quality, or indicator of a publication’s ethics and independence to the reader.
Impatience with paywalls. Meanwhile, as more and more newsrooms and apps charge subscription fees to make up for revenue lost to Facebook and Google, we’ll see password fatigue morph into paywall fatigue. Most of us are numb to the unending prompts to create new “safe” passwords, but the increasingly requests to “subscribe” every time we click to read an article will begin to wear on even the most dedicated and thoughtful news consumers. I would happily pay for a year’s bundled subscription to Wired, The Washington Post, and Medium, at a discounted rate with a single login. Similar to Tony Haile’s Scroll service (which bundles outlets into an ad-free experience), outlets will consider consolidating their offers for paid content in 2019. If not, Apple News will continue doing the best job of curating the news, while taking its cut of advertising dollars.
Cobbling it together. On the other end of the media spectrum, a number of homegrown publications will attempt to replicate the small-scale but impressive successes like those of the podcast collective Radiotopia and the crowdfunded newsroom De Correspondent. Both have proven that journalism doesn’t have to “scale” to survive, as long as the relationships they build with listeners and readers is long-term and heartfelt. I think we’ll see more of these independent journalism outlets lean on each other for resources, cross-promotion, and collaboration, just as ProPublica has done successfully and Julia Angwin says she’ll do with The Markup. Again, Civil’s blockchain promises remain unproven, but the group of journalists it recruited to found its “First Fleet” of newsrooms have thrived on relatively small grants.
Journalist as entrepreneur. Remember a decade ago when journalists were told they each needed to build a personal brand? This year, the message will also be that journalists need to become entrepreneurs. I recently launched my own mini-media company, so feel free to call me naive or overly optimistic.
But I’ve worked as a staffer, freelancer, on-contract, and now a founder; I’ve worked for government-funded media (the BBC), an international news service (Thomson Reuters), and listener-supported public radio (WNYC). Even in public radio, the message to producers is to create audio products that have multiple revenue streams: increase membership, spinoff products, sponsorship, live events, grants. They haven’t moved to the subscription model, yet but that’s likely coming very soon. As part of our new venture, Stable Genius Productions, my cofounder and I are cobbling those options together (hell, we even gave crypto a go) to support ourselves while owning our intellectual property and maintaining editorial control. We’re even documenting the process in our meta podcast ZigZag.
The Google/Facebook duopoly won’t convince most journalists to “move fast and break things,” but perhaps we need to get more comfortable with other trite startup terminology like “failing forward” and “pivoting.” As Joe Lubin, the founder of Consensys, told me, “We live in exponential times.” Experimentation may be the new business model.
Manoush Zomorodi is cofounder of Stable Genius Productions and cohost of ZigZag.
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
james Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Joshua Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Greg Emerson Power to the user
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration