Month after month after month, 2018 was full of examples of the risks of platform overreliance. The problems became harder to ignore, both for organizations and for end users.
We started 2018 with Facebook cutting reach for Pages yet again — another sign of the love/fury relationship news outlets have always had with that social network. We ended 2018 seeing Tumblr make a dramatic, hail-Mary move to remove significant amounts of user-generated adult content from its platform. Both moves highlighted the worst of what happens when platforms define the ways we communicate.
Lots of smaller trends touched upon these same weaknesses. For example, controversial political personalities such as Alex Jones and Laura Loomer found themselves “deplatformed,” each making public scenes in last-ditch attempts to salvage their public voice. (We can agree or disagree about whether they should have been kicked off, but the fact we’re even having the conversation is telling.) Meanwhile, small media companies with outsized influence — like The Awl, Lenny Letter, and Rookie — said their goodbyes, their business models running into the challenges of scale that come with running a modern media outlet.
The undercurrents behind many of these shifts during 2018 were clear: Platforms are the key to influence in the modern era. We’ve spent years being burned by them and complaining about them for either doing too much or not enough.
But what if, in 2019, we take a step back and decide not to let the platform decide how to run the show?
We already have the seeds to get things started. In 2018, email marketing became an increasingly important part of the media diet — and even though platforms abound there, you don’t need them to create something great, because email isn’t platform-dependent. The one social network that seems to have gained any real momentum since Snapchat is Mastodon, in large part because it has explicitly sold itself as an anti-platform of sorts that will never see an IPO. Tech-savvy users who have seen it all before want to see something else. There are more of those users than ever — and they’ll still want things to read after they deactivate their Facebook account.
And there seems to be an increased interest in the strategic advantages of a good content management system that is hosted on your own server and based on your own nuanced needs. No longer are we talking about the CMS in terms of whether it’s dead, or whether we should let Medium eat all our content and share it out based on some algorithm. (We already tried that. It didn’t work.) We can own our technology — even sell it to other media outlets without the specialization — and define more of our own destinies. I’ve been working on a redesign of my site recently, using a more robust CMS, and the advantages of controlling the structure of the platform soup-to-nuts are obvious, even if it requires more upfront work.
These platforms promised reach, but they came with a lot of other things we didn’t actually want, and the scale is tipping in favor of the do-not-want category. 2019 is the year when publishers — whether big ones like Axios or the Los Angeles Times or tiny ones like mine or Judd Legum’s Popular Information — move away from letting someone else call all the shots. Or, at least, they should.
We’ll never be rid of social networks and other digital gatekeepers, but in 2019, perhaps we should right-size their influence on our media businesses. Let’s replace the shadows that Twitter and Facebook and Google have been on the media with some business-model fundamentals. As 2018 has shown, they’ve offered us a lot more heartache than it feels like they’re actually worth.
Ernie Smith is the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter.
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together