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