Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity

“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.”

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.

Danielle C. Belton   A decimated media rededicates itself to truth

Benjamin Toff   Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse

Sarah Marshall   The year audiences need extra cheer

Zainab Khan   From understanding to feeling

Francesco Zaffarano   The year we ask the audience what it needs

John Garrett   A surprisingly good year

Julia Angwin   Show your (computational) work

Renée Kaplan   Falling in love with your subscription

Tshepo Tshabalala   Go niche

John Davidow   Reflect and repent

Kevin D. Grant   Parachute journalism goes away for good

Joanne McNeil   Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism

Mandy Jenkins   You build trust by helping your readers

Tamar Charney   Public radio has a midlife crisis

Brandy Zadrozny   Misinformation fatigue sets in

Tonya Mosley   True equity means ownership

Taylor Lorenz   Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy

Loretta Chao   Open up the profession

Jessica Clark   News becomes plural

Ståle Grut   Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen   Stop pretending publishers are a united front

Mike Ananny   Toward better tech journalism

Eric Nuzum   Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder

Bo Hee Kim   Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture

Nikki Usher   Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media

Garance Franke-Ruta   Rebundling content, rebuilding connections

Nonny de la Pena   News reaches the third dimension

Astead W. Herndon   The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again

Linda Solomon Wood   Canada steps up for journalism

Alyssa Zeisler   Holistic medicine for journalism

Michael W. Wagner   Fractured democracy, fractured journalism

Burt Herman   Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities

Hadjar Benmiloud   Get representative, or die trying

Jim Friedlich   A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses

Cory Bergman   The year after a thousand earthquakes

José Zamora   Walking the talk on diversity

Matt DeRienzo   Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality

Candis Callison   Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)

Whitney Phillips   Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods

Megan McCarthy   Readers embrace a low-information diet

Francesca Tripodi   Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes

Sumi Aggarwal   News literacy programs aren’t child’s play

Celeste Headlee   The rise of radical newsroom transparency

Imaeyen Ibanga   Journalism gets unmasked

Andrew Donohue   The rise of the democracy beat

Patrick Butler   Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration

Ariel Zirulnick   Local newsrooms question their paywalls

Errin Haines   Let’s normalize women’s leadership

Laura E. Davis   The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change

Doris Truong   Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage

Mark Stenberg   The rise of the journalist-influencer

Kerri Hoffman   Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem

Nicholas Jackson   Blogging is back, but better

Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula   Expect to see more translations and non-English content

Sue Cross   A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save

Annie Rudd   Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”

David Chavern   Local video finally gets momentum

Rick Berke   Virtual events are here to stay

Logan Jaffe   History as a reporting tool

Cindy Royal   J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability

Mariano Blejman   It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism

John Saroff   Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites

Joni Deutsch   Local arts and music make journalism more joyous

Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli   Defund the crime beat

C.W. Anderson   Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?

Tanya Cordrey   Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values

Juleyka Lantigua   The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned

Janet Haven and Sam Hinds   Is this an AI newsroom?

Chicas Poderosas   More voices mean better information

Hossein Derakhshan   Mass personalization of truth

Jeremy Gilbert   Human-centered journalism

Bill Adair   The future of fact-checking is all about structured data

Ariane Bernard   Going solo is still only a path for the few

Ashton Lattimore   Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry

Marcus Mabry   News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)

M. Scott Havens   Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption

Kawandeep Virdee   Goodbye, doomscroll

Moreno Cruz Osório   In Brazil, a push for pluralism

Rachel Schallom   The rise of nonprofit journalism continues

Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui   Millennials are ready to run things

Gordon Crovitz   Common law will finally apply to the Internet

Parker Molloy   The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump

Ryan Kellett   The bundle gets bundled

Edward Roussel   Tech companies get aggressive in local

Rishad Patel   From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers

Jennifer Brandel   A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation

Jody Brannon   People won’t renew

Joshua P. Darr   Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis

Anna Nirmala   Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots

Nabiha Syed   Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships

Richard Tofel   Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)

J. Siguru Wahutu   Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different

Gonzalo del Peon   Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side

Rachel Glickhouse   Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves

Nisha Chittal   The year we stop pivoting

Aaron Foley   Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news

Heidi Tworek   A year of news mocktails

Robert Hernandez   Data and shame

Gabe Schneider   Another year of empty promises on diversity

Nico Gendron   Ask your readers to help build your products

Steve Henn   Has independent podcasting peaked?

Sara M. Watson   Return of the RSS reader

Masuma Ahuja   We’ll remember how interconnected our world is

Talmon Joseph Smith   The media rejects deficit hawkery

Don Day   Business first, journalism second

Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund   The virus ups data journalism’s game

Cory Haik   Be essential

Amara Aguilar   Journalism schools emphasize listening

Natalie Meade   Journalism enters rehab

Marissa Evans   Putting community trauma into context

Chase Davis   The year we look beyond The Story

Sarah Stonbely   Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity

Mike Caulfield   2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)

Ben Collins   We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists

Andrew Ramsammy   Stop being polite and start getting real

Jennifer Choi   What have we done for you lately?

Rodney Gibbs   Zooming beyond talking heads

Mark S. Luckie   Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy

Marie Shanahan   Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo

Catalina Albeanu   Publish less, listen more

Zizi Papacharissi   The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth

Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman   Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation

Anthony Nadler   Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy

Charo Henríquez   A new path to leadership

Samantha Ragland   The year of journalists taking initiative

Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin   Media reparations now

Basile Simon   Graphics, unite

Pablo Boczkowski   Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?

Colleen Shalby   The definition of good journalism shifts

Jacqué Palmer   The rise of the plain-text email newsletter

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes   A shift from conversation to action

Sonali Prasad   Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise

Jonas Kaiser   Toward a wehrhafte journalism

Cherian George   Enter the lamb warriors

An Xiao Mina   2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary

Beena Raghavendran   Journalism gets fused with art

Tim Carmody   Spotify will make big waves in video

Kristen Muller   Engaged journalism scales

Kate Myers   My son will join every Zoom call in our industry

Ben Werdmuller   The web blooms again

Christoph Mergerson   Black Americans will demand more from journalism

Jer Thorp   Fewer pixels, more cardboard

David Skok   A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation

Meredith D. Clark   The year journalism starts paying reparations

John Ketchum   More journalists of color become newsroom founders

Jesse Holcomb   Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism

Brian Moritz   The year sports journalism changes for good

A.J. Bauer   The year of MAGAcal thinking

Delia Cai   Subscriptions start working for the middle

María Sánchez Díez   Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok

Raney Aronson-Rath   To get past information divides, we need to understand them first

Matt Skibinski   Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it

Sam Ford   We’ll find better ways to archive our work

Ernie Smith   Entrepreneurship on rails

Victor Pickard   The commercial era for local journalism is over

Ray Soto   The news gets spatial

Pia Frey   Building growth through tastemakers and their communities