This moment is the epitome of uncertainty. Like many such moments of transition — when a phase change is possible — the political and media environment is highly energized, and it’s difficult if not impossible to discern exactly what the future holds. Many of us see mixed signals, where hopes for a rebirth of journalism exist side by side with seemingly unsurmountable challenges.
The context into which journalists will publish their journalism in the United States in 2020 will be extremely challenging. The truths they seek to impart to the public will be swept into a roiling ocean of information on social media platforms conducive to propaganda and falsehoods, polluted and disrupted by others seeking partisan advantage through fair means and foul.
Journalists will face a vicious cycle. Public critiques of accurate news that don’t fit audience members’ political views run headlong into politicians who exacerbate distrust by leaning into conspiracy theories and ignoring facts. Yet reporters’ work is ever more important. Their stories must truly hold the powerful accountable — whether monopolistic companies or politicians inclined towards autocracy.
That said, nothing is set; moments of transition are pregnant with possibility. Outcomes we may fear — where journalism is overwhelmed — are no less possible than those where journalism emerges newly vibrant and powerful.
The groundwork is being laid. The journalists of 2020 are newly prepared. They’re exploring approaches that involve and energize readers and ensure the topics they cover reflect reader priorities. The engaged elections movement — which reorients election coverage around the curiosity and concerns of communities — is marking the way.
Curiously, while the economic weakness of commercial outlets is undesirable, it allows the fast-growing nonprofit news sector to increasingly reflect the makeup of the American public. Projects such as the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund — alongside a renewed commitment to equity and inclusion in newsrooms — could transform the field.
Once a dirty word, collaboration is now openly embraced by news outlets where it provides value. Electionland in 2016 and 2018 involved many. State-based efforts such as Votingbloc in New Jersey will likely be replicated across other states. First Draft News, which seeks to address misinformation head on, is at its core a collaboration. Initially global, the project is now forging new relationships at the local level in the United States. Many other collaborations are being documented by the Center for Cooperative Media.
Younger journalists are ever more ready to leverage capabilities that marry data, audio, and video, and they are keen to take on the challenge of truth-telling.
It’s unclear how these new outlets and their journalists will navigate what feels akin to the storm of the century. However, I have hopes that the rising reader-engaged, disaggregated, collaborative ecosystem of reporters and newish outlets will benefit from this moment. Ideally, they’ll draw from it a newly sharpened mission and related support. Doing so will help us all undertake the hard work in years ahead of developing policies to support new forms and institutions of public interest media that can meet and master our rocky media seas.
Tom Glaisyer is managing director of the Public Square Program of the Democracy Fund.
This moment is the epitome of uncertainty. Like many such moments of transition — when a phase change is possible — the political and media environment is highly energized, and it’s difficult if not impossible to discern exactly what the future holds. Many of us see mixed signals, where hopes for a rebirth of journalism exist side by side with seemingly unsurmountable challenges.
The context into which journalists will publish their journalism in the United States in 2020 will be extremely challenging. The truths they seek to impart to the public will be swept into a roiling ocean of information on social media platforms conducive to propaganda and falsehoods, polluted and disrupted by others seeking partisan advantage through fair means and foul.
Journalists will face a vicious cycle. Public critiques of accurate news that don’t fit audience members’ political views run headlong into politicians who exacerbate distrust by leaning into conspiracy theories and ignoring facts. Yet reporters’ work is ever more important. Their stories must truly hold the powerful accountable — whether monopolistic companies or politicians inclined towards autocracy.
That said, nothing is set; moments of transition are pregnant with possibility. Outcomes we may fear — where journalism is overwhelmed — are no less possible than those where journalism emerges newly vibrant and powerful.
The groundwork is being laid. The journalists of 2020 are newly prepared. They’re exploring approaches that involve and energize readers and ensure the topics they cover reflect reader priorities. The engaged elections movement — which reorients election coverage around the curiosity and concerns of communities — is marking the way.
Curiously, while the economic weakness of commercial outlets is undesirable, it allows the fast-growing nonprofit news sector to increasingly reflect the makeup of the American public. Projects such as the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund — alongside a renewed commitment to equity and inclusion in newsrooms — could transform the field.
Once a dirty word, collaboration is now openly embraced by news outlets where it provides value. Electionland in 2016 and 2018 involved many. State-based efforts such as Votingbloc in New Jersey will likely be replicated across other states. First Draft News, which seeks to address misinformation head on, is at its core a collaboration. Initially global, the project is now forging new relationships at the local level in the United States. Many other collaborations are being documented by the Center for Cooperative Media.
Younger journalists are ever more ready to leverage capabilities that marry data, audio, and video, and they are keen to take on the challenge of truth-telling.
It’s unclear how these new outlets and their journalists will navigate what feels akin to the storm of the century. However, I have hopes that the rising reader-engaged, disaggregated, collaborative ecosystem of reporters and newish outlets will benefit from this moment. Ideally, they’ll draw from it a newly sharpened mission and related support. Doing so will help us all undertake the hard work in years ahead of developing policies to support new forms and institutions of public interest media that can meet and master our rocky media seas.
Tom Glaisyer is managing director of the Public Square Program of the Democracy Fund.
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Mario García Think small (screen)
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own