I read the same speech over and over this year. It’s by Dana Coester, executive editor of 100 Days in Appalachia and a faculty member at West Virginia University. She delivered it to the Aspen Institute’s Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy at a meeting in Nashville in 2018; I was one of the commissioners and got to hear it IRL.
She describes her journey from enthusiastic early adopter to disenfranchised digital citizen, repeating the halting mantra: “We are not winning.”
Like me, Dana was an early adopter and believer in the power of technology to “right injustices, to insert missing voices into democracy, and to bridge divides.” And like me, she is pessimistic about the current state of the internet — but optimistic about journalism. I keep coming back to Dana’s speech to reflect and to rally.
There are many pieces in this genre. Clio Chang’s Medium essay, “The Decade the Internet Lost Its Joy.” Kara Swisher’s New York Times column “There Is a Reason Tech Isn’t Safe.” Dries Buytaert’s op-ed for CNN Business, “The Internet Is a Dark Place. I Want the Old One Back.”
The internet will not get safer or more joyful this coming election year. Stories from the past few weeks alone include government-led blackouts as a tool of suppression in India and Iran. A cyberattack in Pensacola and then another in New Orleans. And CNN’s own content being manipulated and shared on platforms who act slowly or not at all.
I hear Dana’s mantra of “We are not winning” in every one of those stories. We aren’t currently winning. But we won’t give up. In 2020, we will pick the right battles to fight, and the right places to fight them.
One “not right” place is Twitter. It’s full of distractions from the important work to do. I’d like to predict journalists will spend less time there in the year ahead — but that’s not a safe bet.
Some of the best journalism is happening right now. That’s a trend for the coming year. At CNN and elsewhere, I see outstanding political journalism — from swift and straight-up coverage of breaking news to sharp analysis, enterprise, and investigations. There’s much more to come.
There will be more innovative uses of technology, data, and storytelling to fact-check, to explain and annotate, to inform and prepare audiences for deepfakes and other types of misinformation. That kind of work will get better — and will be more needed — in the coming year. This moment of turmoil and division will make journalists and the work we do more valued.
While the U.S. election will rightly dominate the news cycles to come, journalists must ensure we aren’t doing those stories at the cost of others. That’s a huge priority at CNN, especially on digital/non-linear platforms. That means more human stories of detainees at the border. It means more reporting on the abuse of children by their religious leaders. It means growing the commitment to urgent journalism around the climate crisis. I’m grateful to work with smart people who are planning not just for 2020, but 2021.
In the coming year, news organizations that survived the pivot to video and the flawed theory of “homepagelessness” will more fully realize the power of trusted brands, the ability to control one’s destiny through owned and operated properties. There will be more in-house technological innovations. There will be smarter uses of tools and analytics to better serve audiences.
Social platforms won’t be abandoned, but they’ll be used more purposefully. The trust and hope that news organizations once had in platforms, naive as it was, has completely vanished. There are still audiences who deserve trustworthy, accurate content on those platforms. The CNN Climate Instagram account is one example of this — a critical single topic serving a targeted, engaged audience.
Solidarity among news organizations will strengthen. We’ll share more about the challenges we share — how to confront bad actors, how to bolster our businesses, and yes, how to fight and win battles on our own turf and our own terms.
Meredith Artley is editor-in-chief and senior vice president of CNN Digital.
I read the same speech over and over this year. It’s by Dana Coester, executive editor of 100 Days in Appalachia and a faculty member at West Virginia University. She delivered it to the Aspen Institute’s Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy at a meeting in Nashville in 2018; I was one of the commissioners and got to hear it IRL.
She describes her journey from enthusiastic early adopter to disenfranchised digital citizen, repeating the halting mantra: “We are not winning.”
Like me, Dana was an early adopter and believer in the power of technology to “right injustices, to insert missing voices into democracy, and to bridge divides.” And like me, she is pessimistic about the current state of the internet — but optimistic about journalism. I keep coming back to Dana’s speech to reflect and to rally.
There are many pieces in this genre. Clio Chang’s Medium essay, “The Decade the Internet Lost Its Joy.” Kara Swisher’s New York Times column “There Is a Reason Tech Isn’t Safe.” Dries Buytaert’s op-ed for CNN Business, “The Internet Is a Dark Place. I Want the Old One Back.”
The internet will not get safer or more joyful this coming election year. Stories from the past few weeks alone include government-led blackouts as a tool of suppression in India and Iran. A cyberattack in Pensacola and then another in New Orleans. And CNN’s own content being manipulated and shared on platforms who act slowly or not at all.
I hear Dana’s mantra of “We are not winning” in every one of those stories. We aren’t currently winning. But we won’t give up. In 2020, we will pick the right battles to fight, and the right places to fight them.
One “not right” place is Twitter. It’s full of distractions from the important work to do. I’d like to predict journalists will spend less time there in the year ahead — but that’s not a safe bet.
Some of the best journalism is happening right now. That’s a trend for the coming year. At CNN and elsewhere, I see outstanding political journalism — from swift and straight-up coverage of breaking news to sharp analysis, enterprise, and investigations. There’s much more to come.
There will be more innovative uses of technology, data, and storytelling to fact-check, to explain and annotate, to inform and prepare audiences for deepfakes and other types of misinformation. That kind of work will get better — and will be more needed — in the coming year. This moment of turmoil and division will make journalists and the work we do more valued.
While the U.S. election will rightly dominate the news cycles to come, journalists must ensure we aren’t doing those stories at the cost of others. That’s a huge priority at CNN, especially on digital/non-linear platforms. That means more human stories of detainees at the border. It means more reporting on the abuse of children by their religious leaders. It means growing the commitment to urgent journalism around the climate crisis. I’m grateful to work with smart people who are planning not just for 2020, but 2021.
In the coming year, news organizations that survived the pivot to video and the flawed theory of “homepagelessness” will more fully realize the power of trusted brands, the ability to control one’s destiny through owned and operated properties. There will be more in-house technological innovations. There will be smarter uses of tools and analytics to better serve audiences.
Social platforms won’t be abandoned, but they’ll be used more purposefully. The trust and hope that news organizations once had in platforms, naive as it was, has completely vanished. There are still audiences who deserve trustworthy, accurate content on those platforms. The CNN Climate Instagram account is one example of this — a critical single topic serving a targeted, engaged audience.
Solidarity among news organizations will strengthen. We’ll share more about the challenges we share — how to confront bad actors, how to bolster our businesses, and yes, how to fight and win battles on our own turf and our own terms.
Meredith Artley is editor-in-chief and senior vice president of CNN Digital.
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
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
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Joshua Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
james Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Mario García Think small (screen)
L. Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
An Xiao Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Richard J. Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right