For almost 100 years, news on the radio has been the constant companion of billions when their eyes and hands are busy and their minds are curious. 2019 will be the year radio — at least on smart speakers — begins to change in profound ways. Soon, we’ll be able to ask our smart speakers questions and have them answered not in a robot’s voice, but by connecting us with beautifully told stories. Broadcasts will begin on our schedule, when we’re ready to listen. They’ll speak to our unique interests and answer our questions. 2019 will be the year when Google and news partners all over the world will create a new interactive “radio.” Together, we’re building a new format that can listen to questions and connect listeners with answers.
For decades, starting a radio show was hard — there were gatekeepers and new shows were expensive to launch. Today those barriers to entry have collapsed, and newsrooms around the world are reaching new audiences and giving their work a powerful new voice.
The number of great audio journalism programs is exploding, and the line between newspapers and broadcasters is blurring. In less than two years, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox, Axios, Gannett, and The Guardian have all launched new daily news podcasts. NPR, ABC, and the CBC have expanded their digital-first work as well.
While podcasting has created a wealth of new programs, radio journalism is not dead. It’s thriving. And smart speakers still face some big challenges. There might be a dozen great new shows hidden inside your Google Home or lurking in Alexa’s brain — but if you don’t know how to ask a smart speaker for them, by name, you may never find them.
Unlike conventional radios, smart speakers don’t have dials you can flip through to find something new. There is no “Discover Weekly” for news or podcasts. Spotify’s suggested playlists don’t really exist this world…yet. In 2019, the Google News Initiative is funding 40 smart-speaker projects in 10 languages with publishers and broadcasters from 19 countries. And we’re prototyping a new way to listen to the news on smart speakers and using artificial intelligence to make the experience better every time you tune in.
We believe that together, we can build a new kind of experience will allow listeners to explore the expanding world of audio journalism — and help publishers and broadcasters discover new devoted fans.
Steve Henn is news content lead for Google Assistant.
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win