From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to Google’s work on the Department of Defense’s Project Maven, from Tesla’s fatal autopilot car crash to Facebook’s massive security breach, the problematic ways in which technology companies handled their data and constructed their algorithms repeatedly made headlines in 2018. As a result, Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives spent most of last year apologizing for their expanding impact on society, which had previously been a triumphal narrative.
The tone of the journalistic coverage of Silicon Valley changed dramatically as well. Previous years’ breathless enthusiasm and optimistic accounts of digital technologies gave way to critical assessments in mainstream newsrooms across the United States. News organizations covered instances of disinformation, polarization, and discrimination fueled by algorithms. Journalists offered more wary accounts of the efforts of technology companies to solve their large-scale problems. The current media mood — perhaps like the mood of the public at large — has become decidedly anti-algorithmic.
In 2019, I hope that newsrooms will take this anti-algorithm stance to the next level by turning a critical eye to their own behavior.
From their use of invasive tracking systems to their reliance on real-time web analytics and their dependence on social media platforms for distribution, newsrooms are deeply enmeshed in the algorithmic world, as I have written elsewhere. To date, newsrooms have not lingered on this fact. Unlike the glory of the resistance to Trump or the breaking news of Facebook’s mishandling data, the co-dependency of news organizations and algorithmic technologies has remained a dirty topic for most journalists.
Yet the relationship between newsrooms, algorithms, and online audiences is at the root of news organizations’ most central and pressing dilemmas. Can newsrooms produce quality information and make it attractive for algorithmically connected audiences? Can journalists take the time to do in-depth investigations and write the short updates needed to keep their readers engaged? Can news organizations, technology companies, and other institutional actors work together to prevent further polarization and misinformation?
For news organizations, such a reflexive turn would require moving beyond the statement of noble principles to realizing that the devil is in the details. It requires a more careful examination of what abstract journalistic values mean in practice. That means addressing the hard questions of how to make such values consistent with the search for revenue and the prominence of click-driven curation. It means reflecting on their uneasy relationship with Facebook and Google. It requires returning to dusty and messy questions about the enduring role of collective norms and the power dynamics at stake in competitive markets. It entails continuing to examine the reality beyond the hype surrounding Silicon Valley’s algorithms, especially when that hype promises to save the news itself.
Of course, this reflexive turn does not mean abandoning technology altogether. But it is time for newsrooms to make informed choices about how much of their fate to put in algorithmic tools, and understand precisely how news production gets transformed when they do so. As an ethnographer, I can’t wait to see how it happens.
Angèle Christin is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University.
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Carrie Brown Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Nik Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you