2019 will be the year when both journalists and their audiences will finally understand that most numbers we see in the media aren’t precise, but often come surrounded by a fuzzy cloud of uncertainty. We’ll all accept that this is just the way the world works. We may even come up with good ways to visualize this cloud.
In 2019, readers won’t feel anxious when seeing a needle that swings based on random jittering. Also, journalists will stop reporting tiny variations of indicators that aren’t very accurate to begin with without putting them in their historical context.
In 2019, we’ll all grasp that a 15 percent chance of something happening isn’t 0 percent, as any seasoned Dungeons & Dragons fan can tell you. It’s roughly the equivalent of rolling a 1 — or any other single number — on a six-sided die. A 30 percent chance is the chance of scoring 5 or 6 when rolling for damage with a short sword, enough to kill a goblin before it strikes back.
In 2019, most people will finally be able to read the National Hurricane Center’s cone of uncertainty as a range of possible paths of the center of a storm, and not as an area under threat.
In 2019, opinion editors will chastise columnists who still think that “error” in statistics is synonymous with “mistake,” or that the fact that all forecast models are uncertain means that all models are wrong. These editors will grasp that statistical uncertainty is always connected to a confidence level, and that the fact that many independent and uncertain models point in a similar direction should increase the confidence we have in them.
In 2019, we’ll all learn to be less certain about our beliefs. We may even pay attention to cognitive psychologists who explain that the best way to become aware of our knowledge gaps is to try to explain our opinions to others without taking logical leaps or relying on arguments from authority. We’ll be humbled by our many failures at these attempts.
Needless to say, I don’t have full confidence in any of these predictions, but I do hope they’ll become true.
Alberto Cairo is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami.
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
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
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments