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