Who among us isn’t eager for 2020 to be over? We’re all looking forward to (hopefully) leaving the worst parts of the pandemic behind. But there are some issues this year brought to the surface that the news industry shouldn’t just move on from. And by this point, it’s newsroom leaders who need to step up to enact lasting change.
The messages are loud and clear: BIPOC journalists have done the work, and newsroom diversity and coverage aren’t where they should be. Journalists are burnt out. Americans’ trust in quality news sources isn’t getting much better, wounding our ability to function as a democracy.
Journalists say we want to fix these problems, and it’s not like zero progress has been made. But real solutions require real and sustained work from all of us. The work is hard and takes place every day. So to motivate it, leaders need to make changes to the system. That means aligning incentives with stated goals.
I’m far from the first to speak on how they can get started, but here are a few reminders:
All of this takes more than a newsroom-wide memo. It takes new performance reviews. It takes an office culture that promotes flexibility, values family, and considers work-life balance. It takes detailed follow-up. It takes rethinking your assumptions and habits and checking yourself and your newsroom. And yes, it takes more memos to highlight all the follow-up you’re doing to motivate more people to keep participating in the reformed system.
I’ll say it again: It’s real and hard work. But if 2020 didn’t motivate you to do better in 2021, our newsrooms and our democracy will be in worse shape by 2022.
Laura E. Davis is an assistant professor of professional practice at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.
Who among us isn’t eager for 2020 to be over? We’re all looking forward to (hopefully) leaving the worst parts of the pandemic behind. But there are some issues this year brought to the surface that the news industry shouldn’t just move on from. And by this point, it’s newsroom leaders who need to step up to enact lasting change.
The messages are loud and clear: BIPOC journalists have done the work, and newsroom diversity and coverage aren’t where they should be. Journalists are burnt out. Americans’ trust in quality news sources isn’t getting much better, wounding our ability to function as a democracy.
Journalists say we want to fix these problems, and it’s not like zero progress has been made. But real solutions require real and sustained work from all of us. The work is hard and takes place every day. So to motivate it, leaders need to make changes to the system. That means aligning incentives with stated goals.
I’m far from the first to speak on how they can get started, but here are a few reminders:
All of this takes more than a newsroom-wide memo. It takes new performance reviews. It takes an office culture that promotes flexibility, values family, and considers work-life balance. It takes detailed follow-up. It takes rethinking your assumptions and habits and checking yourself and your newsroom. And yes, it takes more memos to highlight all the follow-up you’re doing to motivate more people to keep participating in the reformed system.
I’ll say it again: It’s real and hard work. But if 2020 didn’t motivate you to do better in 2021, our newsrooms and our democracy will be in worse shape by 2022.
Laura E. Davis is an assistant professor of professional practice at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
An Xiao Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism