This year, Canada refused to let journalism fail. In 2021, that decision will show results.
The Canadian government has launched a new program to address the hundreds of journalism jobs being lost, the dozens of news organizations being shuttered, and the obliteration of the old revenue model for journalism. The grants from the Local Journalism Initiative, remarkably, hit news organizations just as the COVID-19 lockdown did last March.
The $11.4 million (CAN) spent funded 213 positions. This saved a lot of jobs and kept journalists reporting in their communities, uncovering news that would have gone unreported. I predict that these far-flung journalists will be a stabilizing force for Canada’s democracy in 2021.
Another big boost to journalism in Canada came this fall as the Canadian Periodical Fund distributed $45 million via “Special Measures for Journalism.” So Canada has shown leadership in securing a future for journalism — but there is more that can be done.
In 2021, publishers will be asking the government to allow media companies to form related foundations that can issue tax receipts for donations. If they’re not successful, millions of philanthropic dollars that would have gone into sustaining both traditional newspapers and new independent media may remain on the sidelines. But if the government allows new journalism foundations to happen, we’ll see a renaissance of excellent reporting funded through philanthropy.
One way or another, I predict that the philanthropic sector in Canada will lean in further to fund journalism in 2021. But will the social media platforms increase their spending on journalism next year?
In 2021, it’s my hope that the leaders inside Facebook and Google will go bigger in their support for the journalism that benefits society. In my dream world, the Google News Initiative will come around to the value of public service journalism: doing massive funding of it around the world, shifting the funding focus away from technological innovation to the stories that can help the planet and people, bringing facts to citizens and empowering them to demand that governments act fast on climate change, equity, and ensuring public safety.
In 2021, new companies will continue to launch and grow, providing a diversity of management, teams, tone, and focus. Some of us in Canada’s independent media universe, which is largely made up of these young and exciting companies, have just come together to form an association called Press Forward. This new association will give innovators and entrepreneurial journalists, digital players, and emerging companies a stronger voice.
Who knows? We may very well find new business opportunities together as we innovate through collaboration.
Speaking of collaborations, Canada has two centers for investigative reporting that will come on even stronger next year: the relatively new Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University and the brand new Investigative Journalism Bureau at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. I predict that 2021 sees some of the best journalism in the country coming out of these centers, which bring together journalists, university researchers, student journalists, and television networks.
As we emerge from the pandemic, our success as publishers will depend more than ever on communication, bigger mailing lists and new subscribers. It will require constantly coming up with ways to keep audiences engaged and always putting readers first. When I was a young journalist at The Tennessean, a sign hung at the far end of the newsroom that read: “Pity the Poor Reader.” Tongue in cheek, but not a bad line as I look into the coming year. As Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein told me recently: “There’s an overload that people are experiencing where they want to turn away. As journalists, we need to respect that and help curate the information that we share.”
That’s so true. It’s more than just finding a big exclusive, or uncovering a scandal, or reporting on the latest weather. It’s being sure our readers stay engaged with their world through our news stories. Especially in these isolating times, a newspaper is like a lighthouse showing the way forward, the dangers ahead as well as solutions. Because of these fast-changing and uncertain times, we need to remain more steady and trustworthy than ever.
Linda Solomon Wood is founder and editor-in-chief of Canada’s National Observer.
This year, Canada refused to let journalism fail. In 2021, that decision will show results.
The Canadian government has launched a new program to address the hundreds of journalism jobs being lost, the dozens of news organizations being shuttered, and the obliteration of the old revenue model for journalism. The grants from the Local Journalism Initiative, remarkably, hit news organizations just as the COVID-19 lockdown did last March.
The $11.4 million (CAN) spent funded 213 positions. This saved a lot of jobs and kept journalists reporting in their communities, uncovering news that would have gone unreported. I predict that these far-flung journalists will be a stabilizing force for Canada’s democracy in 2021.
Another big boost to journalism in Canada came this fall as the Canadian Periodical Fund distributed $45 million via “Special Measures for Journalism.” So Canada has shown leadership in securing a future for journalism — but there is more that can be done.
In 2021, publishers will be asking the government to allow media companies to form related foundations that can issue tax receipts for donations. If they’re not successful, millions of philanthropic dollars that would have gone into sustaining both traditional newspapers and new independent media may remain on the sidelines. But if the government allows new journalism foundations to happen, we’ll see a renaissance of excellent reporting funded through philanthropy.
One way or another, I predict that the philanthropic sector in Canada will lean in further to fund journalism in 2021. But will the social media platforms increase their spending on journalism next year?
In 2021, it’s my hope that the leaders inside Facebook and Google will go bigger in their support for the journalism that benefits society. In my dream world, the Google News Initiative will come around to the value of public service journalism: doing massive funding of it around the world, shifting the funding focus away from technological innovation to the stories that can help the planet and people, bringing facts to citizens and empowering them to demand that governments act fast on climate change, equity, and ensuring public safety.
In 2021, new companies will continue to launch and grow, providing a diversity of management, teams, tone, and focus. Some of us in Canada’s independent media universe, which is largely made up of these young and exciting companies, have just come together to form an association called Press Forward. This new association will give innovators and entrepreneurial journalists, digital players, and emerging companies a stronger voice.
Who knows? We may very well find new business opportunities together as we innovate through collaboration.
Speaking of collaborations, Canada has two centers for investigative reporting that will come on even stronger next year: the relatively new Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University and the brand new Investigative Journalism Bureau at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. I predict that 2021 sees some of the best journalism in the country coming out of these centers, which bring together journalists, university researchers, student journalists, and television networks.
As we emerge from the pandemic, our success as publishers will depend more than ever on communication, bigger mailing lists and new subscribers. It will require constantly coming up with ways to keep audiences engaged and always putting readers first. When I was a young journalist at The Tennessean, a sign hung at the far end of the newsroom that read: “Pity the Poor Reader.” Tongue in cheek, but not a bad line as I look into the coming year. As Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein told me recently: “There’s an overload that people are experiencing where they want to turn away. As journalists, we need to respect that and help curate the information that we share.”
That’s so true. It’s more than just finding a big exclusive, or uncovering a scandal, or reporting on the latest weather. It’s being sure our readers stay engaged with their world through our news stories. Especially in these isolating times, a newspaper is like a lighthouse showing the way forward, the dangers ahead as well as solutions. Because of these fast-changing and uncertain times, we need to remain more steady and trustworthy than ever.
Linda Solomon Wood is founder and editor-in-chief of Canada’s National Observer.
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Nik Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism