Most people who spend their days thinking about or doing journalism have strong opinions about how to cover President Trump and his administration. Few of them seem to believe the answer is “objectively.” Objective reporting, the argument goes, simply wasn’t designed for a president who lies compulsively and shows a reckless disregard for democratic norms.
And yet many of the nation’s most influential news outlets continue to apply standards of objectivity that were designed for more normal times. They turn presidential statements, even if patently false, into credulous headlines. They respond earnestly to promises to abrogate the Constitution through executive action. They remind the audience that “both sides” engage in unsavory political behavior, even when the two sides’ actions are far from equivalent.
Each time this happens, there’s a furious reaction from journo-Twitter, and the offending news outlet often scrambles to make amends. For editors and reporters who remained wedded to pre-Trump ideas of objectivity, these dustups must have a cumulative effect: Either you become a convert to the notion that normalizing Trump is a grave journalistic sin, or you become even more determined to fight those who would undermine a cherished principle (and with it, perhaps, the press’ remaining credibility).
In 2019, with the Mueller investigation potentially wrapping up, the Democrats empowered by their takeover of the House, and the next presidential election coming into view, the antipathy between objectivity’s proponents and detractors is likely to rise.
In many ways, this battle mirrors what was happening in American journalism 50 years ago. Faced with the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration’s onslaught on the press, many journalists believed it was time to drop objectivity in favor of a more honest, transparent approach to coverage. But that viewpoint never prevailed at the country’s leading newspapers and networks, who fought off the challenge to objectivity by the late 1970s.
Of course, newspapers and networks don’t hold the same sway today as they did in 1969. Still, I doubt 2019 will mark the death of objectivity in American journalism. The real test will come in 2021 or 2025, when Trump is out office and journalists must decide whether it’s still an option to “normalize” the president.
Matthew Pressman is an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University.
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Greg Emerson Power to the user
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
An Xiao Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater