This fall, Monika Bauerlein from Mother Jones and I spoke at a gathering of media funders about being women CEOs. A couple of days beforehand, we talked strategy: Should we be cautious in describing our experience, careful not to alienate the men in the room or offend the funders who have so generously invested in our organizations? Or should we dispense with politeness and say in public what we say to each other in private?
We opted for honesty. I’ve never had so many people reach out after a talk to thank me and share their own stories.
That experience, along with a mini-sea change in women taking over leadership of nonprofit news organizations — which gives us all a community of women to turn to for advice, guidance, and commiseration — has gotten me thinking about the change that’s possible as women step in to shape the future of journalism.
There’s some truth to the stereotype that women often bring a more collaborative approach to leadership. (Monika and I have both been accused of being too collaborative, often by men who equate leadership with decisiveness above all else. I’ve decided to respond by being totally decisive about my commitment to being collaborative.) So in that spirit, I turned to the women in my newsroom to ask how journalism can get better for women in 2020.
Their responses are a blueprint for us all:
Demographics are on our side: Women far outnumber men in journalism schools. We are the future of this profession. Let 2020 be the year we stop making excuses and start making journalism a place where women — all women — are respected, treated fairly, and supported. Our newsrooms will be better places to work, and our journalism will better represent the public we are here to serve.
Christa Scharfenberg is CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting.
This fall, Monika Bauerlein from Mother Jones and I spoke at a gathering of media funders about being women CEOs. A couple of days beforehand, we talked strategy: Should we be cautious in describing our experience, careful not to alienate the men in the room or offend the funders who have so generously invested in our organizations? Or should we dispense with politeness and say in public what we say to each other in private?
We opted for honesty. I’ve never had so many people reach out after a talk to thank me and share their own stories.
That experience, along with a mini-sea change in women taking over leadership of nonprofit news organizations — which gives us all a community of women to turn to for advice, guidance, and commiseration — has gotten me thinking about the change that’s possible as women step in to shape the future of journalism.
There’s some truth to the stereotype that women often bring a more collaborative approach to leadership. (Monika and I have both been accused of being too collaborative, often by men who equate leadership with decisiveness above all else. I’ve decided to respond by being totally decisive about my commitment to being collaborative.) So in that spirit, I turned to the women in my newsroom to ask how journalism can get better for women in 2020.
Their responses are a blueprint for us all:
Demographics are on our side: Women far outnumber men in journalism schools. We are the future of this profession. Let 2020 be the year we stop making excuses and start making journalism a place where women — all women — are respected, treated fairly, and supported. Our newsrooms will be better places to work, and our journalism will better represent the public we are here to serve.
Christa Scharfenberg is CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Mario García Think small (screen)
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within