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