In 2018, we’ve seen the acceleration of trends in which older, advertising-centric, scale-driven media models are becoming less and less sustainable, while user-centered, product-focused approaches gain traction. Looking forward, 2019 may well be the year when product-led media moves from the fringes to achieve true significance and maturity.
In recent years, we’ve seen dependence on massive scale become less feasible for many media organizations, especially as platforms like Facebook have deprioritized news items in their algorithms. In turn, advertising models that largely depend on that scale are becoming similarly implausible. These two trends are most starkly depicted in Verizon’s explanation for its abysmal valuation of its Oath media properties.
In parallel, there has been positive growth and engagement in areas that take a more product oriented approach to news, focusing on user needs in a more narrow and thoughtful way. We see this in the rise of products that develop a deeper relationship between journalists and audiences around niche topics, like podcasts and newsletters, as well as in service-oriented media products that support user needs around particular areas of their lives, like cooking or wellness. These initiatives provide better paths to success in two ways. First, they focus on cultivating specific audiences that can then be sold to advertisers while respecting the privacy and data rights of those readers. Second, strong relationships between publishers and readers can lead to natural subscription or membership models based on both product value and an affinity to a brand.
This shift has been challenging for many media companies because they tend to be led by people with backgrounds in editorial and advertising — practices that are inherently reactive, opportunistic, and ephemeral. Those skills make for good, fast reporting and effective sales pitches, but often do not provide a long-term view of how a product will evolve and grow, improving over time. Successful product development requires a proactive, holistic, and considered process with deep systems thinking. One small change to a product experience can have wide ranging knock-on effects that users have to live with — you can’t simply issue a “correction” for your app and move on.
In 2019 and beyond, it’s likely that we will start to see more senior leadership in news organizations that comes from design, product, and technology backgrounds, to provide the kind of partnership with editorial that will allow for compelling user experiences and media products that can thrive in the years to come. Those that succeed will see their readers as their primary customer base, and not their advertisers.
Alexis Lloyd is the head of design innovation at Automattic. Matt Boggie is CTO at The Skimm.
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces