The lockdowns and quarantines that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic caused an unprecedented reliance on remote working and videoconferencing, as nearly all workers whose job functions allowed it worked from home in 2020. As a result, meetings, conferences, and conversations have migrated online, leading to a massive increase in the use of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and other videoconferencing apps for day-to-day business functions.
My hope/prediction for journalism in 2021 is that the newfound comfort with videoconferencing will lead journalists to sources and places they might not have looked before.
Observers have long lamented that national news, especially, is so focused on a few coastal cities like New York and Washington, where both media companies and power structures are based. But with the distance allowed by ubiquitous videoconferencing, people in more remote locations or with less access to power are now just as accessible as the think tank two subway stops away. Journalists should take advantage of this development to broaden the range of people and places in their stories.
As a correlate, many people who once lived in cities or other places defined by their cultural affordances (major institutions, great restaurants, live performances, etc.) have made the decision to leave for locations that can offer bigger houses and bigger yards at an affordable price. This includes all the journalists who have taken the opportunity to move home, where “home” is in the remote suburbs or the Midwest, for example. What both of these trends could mean is that the geographic diversity long lacking in national political news might finally be on the way.
Sarah Stonbely is research director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
The lockdowns and quarantines that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic caused an unprecedented reliance on remote working and videoconferencing, as nearly all workers whose job functions allowed it worked from home in 2020. As a result, meetings, conferences, and conversations have migrated online, leading to a massive increase in the use of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and other videoconferencing apps for day-to-day business functions.
My hope/prediction for journalism in 2021 is that the newfound comfort with videoconferencing will lead journalists to sources and places they might not have looked before.
Observers have long lamented that national news, especially, is so focused on a few coastal cities like New York and Washington, where both media companies and power structures are based. But with the distance allowed by ubiquitous videoconferencing, people in more remote locations or with less access to power are now just as accessible as the think tank two subway stops away. Journalists should take advantage of this development to broaden the range of people and places in their stories.
As a correlate, many people who once lived in cities or other places defined by their cultural affordances (major institutions, great restaurants, live performances, etc.) have made the decision to leave for locations that can offer bigger houses and bigger yards at an affordable price. This includes all the journalists who have taken the opportunity to move home, where “home” is in the remote suburbs or the Midwest, for example. What both of these trends could mean is that the geographic diversity long lacking in national political news might finally be on the way.
Sarah Stonbely is research director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Don Day Business first, journalism second
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth