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