A surprisingly good year

“The pandemic shined a light on the need for local journalism and local news outlets will benefit from new relationships residents are building with their local news providers.”

2021 will be a really good year for the business of local news.

Local news is one industry this pandemic did not disrupt. The pandemic shined a light on the need for local journalism and local news outlets will benefit from new relationships residents are building with their local news providers.

If news organizations take advantage of the opportunity, all newsrooms can benefit from all revenue streams. Reader revenue will continue to grow, “owned” digital dollars will grow — even print advertising revenue can grow as the news organizations use their unique place in the marketplace to demonstrate their enormous value to the communities they serve.

I believe large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, digital and legacy all stand to have a surprisingly good 2021.

John Garrett is the founder and CEO of Community Impact News.

2021 will be a really good year for the business of local news.

Local news is one industry this pandemic did not disrupt. The pandemic shined a light on the need for local journalism and local news outlets will benefit from new relationships residents are building with their local news providers.

If news organizations take advantage of the opportunity, all newsrooms can benefit from all revenue streams. Reader revenue will continue to grow, “owned” digital dollars will grow — even print advertising revenue can grow as the news organizations use their unique place in the marketplace to demonstrate their enormous value to the communities they serve.

I believe large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, digital and legacy all stand to have a surprisingly good 2021.

John Garrett is the founder and CEO of Community Impact News.

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Edward Roussel   Tech companies get aggressive in local

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Zizi Papacharissi   The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth

Jennifer Brandel   A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation

John Saroff   Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites

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Sara M. Watson   Return of the RSS reader

Mark Stenberg   The rise of the journalist-influencer

Kristen Muller   Engaged journalism scales

Joni Deutsch   Local arts and music make journalism more joyous

Marcus Mabry   News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)

Andrew Donohue   The rise of the democracy beat

AX Mina   2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary

Hossein Derakhshan   Mass personalization of truth

Zainab Khan   From understanding to feeling

Errin Haines   Let’s normalize women’s leadership

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen   Stop pretending publishers are a united front

José Zamora   Walking the talk on diversity

Robert Hernandez   Data and shame

María Sánchez Díez   Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok

Colleen Shalby   The definition of good journalism shifts

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Garance Franke-Ruta   Rebundling content, rebuilding connections

A.J. Bauer   The year of MAGAcal thinking

Chase Davis   The year we look beyond The Story

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Matt Skibinski   Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it

Beena Raghavendran   Journalism gets fused with art

Hadjar Benmiloud   Get representative, or die trying

Eric Nuzum   Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder

Francesca Tripodi   Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes

Kerri Hoffman   Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem

Jody Brannon   People won’t renew

Samantha Ragland   The year of journalists taking initiative

Taylor Lorenz   Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy

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Celeste Headlee   The rise of radical newsroom transparency

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Jessica Clark   News becomes plural

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Meredith D. Clark   The year journalism starts paying reparations

Marissa Evans   Putting community trauma into context

Bo Hee Kim   Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture

Kawandeep Virdee   Goodbye, doomscroll

Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula   Expect to see more translations and non-English content

Jeremy Gilbert   Human-centered journalism

Amara Aguilar   Journalism schools emphasize listening

Masuma Ahuja   We’ll remember how interconnected our world is

Ryan Kellett   The bundle gets bundled

David Skok   A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation

Mariano Blejman   It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism

Linda Solomon Wood   Canada steps up for journalism

Kevin D. Grant   Parachute journalism goes away for good

Sonali Prasad   Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise

Ståle Grut   Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox

Tonya Mosley   True equity means ownership

Kate Myers   My son will join every Zoom call in our industry

Mark S. Luckie   Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy

Loretta Chao   Open up the profession

Astead W. Herndon   The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again

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John Garrett   A surprisingly good year

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