When I started writing methodologies to accompany my reporting on the What They Know project at The Wall Street Journal a decade ago, it was essentially a weird sidebar for nerds that just lived on the Digits tech blog.
Nowadays at The Markup, we write detailed methodologies that are as long as academic papers and often reviewed by academic experts before we publish. We also release the underlying datasets and code we use in our investigations, inviting policymakers, consumer activists, community organizers, and others to better understand and engage with our findings.
And we’re not alone. As computational techniques become more widespread, and newsrooms use fancier statistics to analyze data, there is a new genre of journalism emerging: the journalistic white paper.
At a moment when trust in journalism is at a low point, the rise of the journalistic white paper is a sign of how newsrooms are going to have to work harder to defend our work to our audiences. And honestly, that’s a good thing.
As a field, we’re already rising to the occasion. And, in 2021, reporters will embrace their inner academic, newsrooms will assign more technical white papers to complement their narrative stories, and readers will welcome the behind the scenes look at how investigations come to life.
Modeling transparency not only builds trust in the media, but it also normalizes an expectation of openness in culture more broadly. That’s something journalism itself works towards and society will benefit from.
Julia Angwin is founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup.
When I started writing methodologies to accompany my reporting on the What They Know project at The Wall Street Journal a decade ago, it was essentially a weird sidebar for nerds that just lived on the Digits tech blog.
Nowadays at The Markup, we write detailed methodologies that are as long as academic papers and often reviewed by academic experts before we publish. We also release the underlying datasets and code we use in our investigations, inviting policymakers, consumer activists, community organizers, and others to better understand and engage with our findings.
And we’re not alone. As computational techniques become more widespread, and newsrooms use fancier statistics to analyze data, there is a new genre of journalism emerging: the journalistic white paper.
At a moment when trust in journalism is at a low point, the rise of the journalistic white paper is a sign of how newsrooms are going to have to work harder to defend our work to our audiences. And honestly, that’s a good thing.
As a field, we’re already rising to the occasion. And, in 2021, reporters will embrace their inner academic, newsrooms will assign more technical white papers to complement their narrative stories, and readers will welcome the behind the scenes look at how investigations come to life.
Modeling transparency not only builds trust in the media, but it also normalizes an expectation of openness in culture more broadly. That’s something journalism itself works towards and society will benefit from.
Julia Angwin is founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup.
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
An Xiao Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation