In 2019, media trust projects and engagement initiatives continued to proliferate across the world’s newsrooms, especially here in the United States as we approach the 2020 presidential election. New nonprofit newsrooms are emerging every month, such as the new Oakland newsroom from Berkeleyside. The for-profit engagement consultant firm Hearken is thriving, expanding in Europe and growing revenues by 40 percent, according to the co-founder and CEO Jennifer Brandel.
I see these trends continuing, and as a result, I predict we’ll see a different kind of primary and election coverage than in previous election cycles. Horserace coverage will still be the bread-and-butter of certain national outlets such as CNN and Fox — but at the local and mid-sized outlet level, engagement will be the name of the game.
Get ready to answer your door not only to campaigns’ canvassers but also to a local or regional reporter — especially if you live in a rural area or are a member of a marginalized community. Newsrooms of any size looking for support in this work should check out the free Citizens Agenda, a step-by-step guide for a different kind of election coverage driven by “regular people” (as we say in the newsroom) as part of a partnership between Hearken, Jay Rosen’s Membership Puzzle Project, and Joy Mayer’s Trusting News project.
My concrete predictions:
Sue Robinson is the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin.
In 2019, media trust projects and engagement initiatives continued to proliferate across the world’s newsrooms, especially here in the United States as we approach the 2020 presidential election. New nonprofit newsrooms are emerging every month, such as the new Oakland newsroom from Berkeleyside. The for-profit engagement consultant firm Hearken is thriving, expanding in Europe and growing revenues by 40 percent, according to the co-founder and CEO Jennifer Brandel.
I see these trends continuing, and as a result, I predict we’ll see a different kind of primary and election coverage than in previous election cycles. Horserace coverage will still be the bread-and-butter of certain national outlets such as CNN and Fox — but at the local and mid-sized outlet level, engagement will be the name of the game.
Get ready to answer your door not only to campaigns’ canvassers but also to a local or regional reporter — especially if you live in a rural area or are a member of a marginalized community. Newsrooms of any size looking for support in this work should check out the free Citizens Agenda, a step-by-step guide for a different kind of election coverage driven by “regular people” (as we say in the newsroom) as part of a partnership between Hearken, Jay Rosen’s Membership Puzzle Project, and Joy Mayer’s Trusting News project.
My concrete predictions:
Sue Robinson is the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin.
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Mario García Think small (screen)
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation