If journalism is the first rough draft of history, arts and music are the universal languages binding its pages together and preserving it for future generations. Arts and music drive conversations, encourage economic impact through travel and exploration, and bridge the gap between languages and cultures.
Which is why my prediction is a call to action: In a year where the presidency and pandemic were the preoccupations of our 24-hour news cycle, and in a year where the arts and music industry were decimated by Covid-19, it’s time for journalism to reinvest in our community’s culture and creative scenes.
So what can we do — as reporters, producers, and digital media-makers — to rebuild the local arts communities impacted by venue closures and stay-at-home mandates? How can we encourage media institutions (big and small, national and local) to use their platforms in innovative ways that combine stories with song and artistic sentiment?
Amplify music through podcasts and digital media. “There are few kinds of content that can transcend cultures and times as well as music can,” says Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez, who told the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that music podcasts were “one of the last and untapped big content genres in podcasting.”
Which makes sense: a recent Edison Research study showed that 39 percent of podcast listeners were interested in podcasts about music, which likely explains why everyone from major music companies like Sony to streaming services like Spotify to musicians themselves are getting into the podcast game.
Sing it loud and proud: the future is bright (and booming) for music podcasting and digital media. Look to the multi-platform success of Song Exploder, the wildly popular rise of live streaming events like Verzuz, and the continued ascendance of well-produced performances like NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, and you’ll see there is an opportunity (for new audience development, sponsorships, membership, events, and beyond) within this music-minded medium.
Opportunities are everywhere. Be intentional. Looking for a song for your next video or radio piece? Skip the overused music bed and reach out to local musicians and instrumentalists for original material and credit their work. (With a call-out and a Google form, WFAE’s award-winning Amplifier podcast did just that; to date, we’ve received more than 700 music contacts from in and around Charlotte, North Carolina.)
Need a dynamic component for your next virtual event or live stream? Bring on a visual artist to beautifully document the conversation or a spoken word performer to provide opening comments on the program’s theme. Even if you have only 30 seconds of space to fill, that is 30 seconds that can be filled with fresh thoughts and feelings by a local creative, whose contributions are then shared with countless readers, listeners, and audience members. By being intentional with your arts and music features, you are transforming your outlet into a platform for cultural discovery and connections.
Stop, collaborate, and listen. Culture fosters collaboration. Take a moment and think of the possibilities in partnering with community organizations, local businesses, or fellow media outlets to create on-air, online, or virtual events focused on spotlighting arts, music, and culture. If you’re looking for ideas, you can follow the footsteps of noncomMUSIC Alliance and the hundreds of NPR member stations who came together to celebrate music discovery with the inaugural Public Radio Music Day.
At its best, journalism informs. But at its brightest, journalism inspires. That’s thanks to arts and music. It improves our quality of life and strengthens our sense of place. We needed that in the doomscroll year of 2020, and we more than deserve that in 2021. Media platforms can (and should) make great strides to provide it in the new year.
Joni Deutsch is on-demand content and audience engagement manager for WFAE in Charlotte.
If journalism is the first rough draft of history, arts and music are the universal languages binding its pages together and preserving it for future generations. Arts and music drive conversations, encourage economic impact through travel and exploration, and bridge the gap between languages and cultures.
Which is why my prediction is a call to action: In a year where the presidency and pandemic were the preoccupations of our 24-hour news cycle, and in a year where the arts and music industry were decimated by Covid-19, it’s time for journalism to reinvest in our community’s culture and creative scenes.
So what can we do — as reporters, producers, and digital media-makers — to rebuild the local arts communities impacted by venue closures and stay-at-home mandates? How can we encourage media institutions (big and small, national and local) to use their platforms in innovative ways that combine stories with song and artistic sentiment?
Amplify music through podcasts and digital media. “There are few kinds of content that can transcend cultures and times as well as music can,” says Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez, who told the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that music podcasts were “one of the last and untapped big content genres in podcasting.”
Which makes sense: a recent Edison Research study showed that 39 percent of podcast listeners were interested in podcasts about music, which likely explains why everyone from major music companies like Sony to streaming services like Spotify to musicians themselves are getting into the podcast game.
Sing it loud and proud: the future is bright (and booming) for music podcasting and digital media. Look to the multi-platform success of Song Exploder, the wildly popular rise of live streaming events like Verzuz, and the continued ascendance of well-produced performances like NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, and you’ll see there is an opportunity (for new audience development, sponsorships, membership, events, and beyond) within this music-minded medium.
Opportunities are everywhere. Be intentional. Looking for a song for your next video or radio piece? Skip the overused music bed and reach out to local musicians and instrumentalists for original material and credit their work. (With a call-out and a Google form, WFAE’s award-winning Amplifier podcast did just that; to date, we’ve received more than 700 music contacts from in and around Charlotte, North Carolina.)
Need a dynamic component for your next virtual event or live stream? Bring on a visual artist to beautifully document the conversation or a spoken word performer to provide opening comments on the program’s theme. Even if you have only 30 seconds of space to fill, that is 30 seconds that can be filled with fresh thoughts and feelings by a local creative, whose contributions are then shared with countless readers, listeners, and audience members. By being intentional with your arts and music features, you are transforming your outlet into a platform for cultural discovery and connections.
Stop, collaborate, and listen. Culture fosters collaboration. Take a moment and think of the possibilities in partnering with community organizations, local businesses, or fellow media outlets to create on-air, online, or virtual events focused on spotlighting arts, music, and culture. If you’re looking for ideas, you can follow the footsteps of noncomMUSIC Alliance and the hundreds of NPR member stations who came together to celebrate music discovery with the inaugural Public Radio Music Day.
At its best, journalism informs. But at its brightest, journalism inspires. That’s thanks to arts and music. It improves our quality of life and strengthens our sense of place. We needed that in the doomscroll year of 2020, and we more than deserve that in 2021. Media platforms can (and should) make great strides to provide it in the new year.
Joni Deutsch is on-demand content and audience engagement manager for WFAE in Charlotte.
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content