Collaborative journalism isn’t new, as I am happy tell you more about here and here and here and here.
But despite the fact that collaborative journalism is becoming commonplace across much of American media, the one group that hasn’t quite accepted it is local journalists.
Especially those who work for newspapers. Nonprofits, public media, and digital natives are all well versed in collaboration. But newspapers, which still employ a huge chunk of local journalists across the United States, aren’t.
I think (hope) that will change in 2019, because there’s so much to be gained from smart local news collaborations. Electionland in 2016 broke a lot of barriers when it came to collaboration, as many local reporters working with newspapers participated in that project. But now, two years later, I think we are finally really beginning to see the seeds of partnership in local journalism grow. Consider these three recent ones:
Equitable, strategic partnerships like these can help local journalists better serve the public interest. I hope this message makes it way across many more local newsrooms in 2019.
Stefanie Murray is the director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners