A spark that spread through newsrooms in 2020 seemed to give folks hope. Was it an actual “racial reckoning”? I’m not sure. But I definitely observed shifts in the wind that made me feel like things were going to be different. Things like:
But it’s no longer 2020. And the flames that flickered in that moment now seem distant and dim. By 2022, it was an entirely different game. News organizations faced economic uncertainty (even more than usual) and many shops laid staff off or otherwise cut costs.
With a recession looming (or is it already here?), with the intensity of 2020 fading, and with budgets drying up, it would be all too easy for newsrooms to slow or entirely stop their investing into diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work.
I desperately hope my prediction for 2023 doesn’t come true. Because journalists of color and staff from all historically marginalized and excluded backgrounds deserve to work in news organizations that do continue to invest in and care about culture building and diverse teams. Because two years of trying to get better wasn’t enough. Because the work of breaking down systemic inequality in the media is far from over.
In my new role at The Marshall Project, my work centers diversity and culture-building by design. But we know not all organizations have a dedicated role for this work.
So here are a few things people at any level of seniority can do to help tank my 2023 prediction next year. I hope you’ll pick one or two things from the list below and get started immediately.
Emma Carew Grovum is the director of careers and culture at The Marshall Project.
A spark that spread through newsrooms in 2020 seemed to give folks hope. Was it an actual “racial reckoning”? I’m not sure. But I definitely observed shifts in the wind that made me feel like things were going to be different. Things like:
But it’s no longer 2020. And the flames that flickered in that moment now seem distant and dim. By 2022, it was an entirely different game. News organizations faced economic uncertainty (even more than usual) and many shops laid staff off or otherwise cut costs.
With a recession looming (or is it already here?), with the intensity of 2020 fading, and with budgets drying up, it would be all too easy for newsrooms to slow or entirely stop their investing into diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work.
I desperately hope my prediction for 2023 doesn’t come true. Because journalists of color and staff from all historically marginalized and excluded backgrounds deserve to work in news organizations that do continue to invest in and care about culture building and diverse teams. Because two years of trying to get better wasn’t enough. Because the work of breaking down systemic inequality in the media is far from over.
In my new role at The Marshall Project, my work centers diversity and culture-building by design. But we know not all organizations have a dedicated role for this work.
So here are a few things people at any level of seniority can do to help tank my 2023 prediction next year. I hope you’ll pick one or two things from the list below and get started immediately.
Emma Carew Grovum is the director of careers and culture at The Marshall Project.
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work