Modern digital design has drained all sentiment and inventiveness from products we use on a daily basis. From streaming platforms and shopping apps to, of course, news websites, everything looks the same.
UX standardization is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s great to present something in a way people are familiar with, but how do we do that without falling into the performance bubble, rinsing and repeating what everyone else is doing? We designers can facilitate the process and visualize and understand possible paths. Working together with engineering, product, growth, audience, and the newsroom, we can aim for bold new bold ideas and experiences — but are we ready for that?
As a designer, I’d be excited to see the news industry bring back the uniqueness we used to see in printed newspapers — the content density, the grid (and how to break it in clever ways), the personality, the focus — without washing away the brand’s identity and how readers perceive it. In short, how can digital pay respect to a centuries-old industry that shapes culture, influences governments, and documents history?
I’d like to think 2023 is the year we can go back to when everything was new and unexplored, where we take risks and make choices that could reshape the way we experience news online.
Modern digital design has drained all sentiment and inventiveness from products we use on a daily basis. From streaming platforms and shopping apps to, of course, news websites, everything looks the same.
UX standardization is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s great to present something in a way people are familiar with, but how do we do that without falling into the performance bubble, rinsing and repeating what everyone else is doing? We designers can facilitate the process and visualize and understand possible paths. Working together with engineering, product, growth, audience, and the newsroom, we can aim for bold new bold ideas and experiences — but are we ready for that?
As a designer, I’d be excited to see the news industry bring back the uniqueness we used to see in printed newspapers — the content density, the grid (and how to break it in clever ways), the personality, the focus — without washing away the brand’s identity and how readers perceive it. In short, how can digital pay respect to a centuries-old industry that shapes culture, influences governments, and documents history?
I’d like to think 2023 is the year we can go back to when everything was new and unexplored, where we take risks and make choices that could reshape the way we experience news online.
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage