We remain in the fray of a painful, destructive, and generative period. Journalism is fragile. We can point to a barrage of political and institutional failures, corruption, technology’s vulnerability to manipulation, greed. Consider that truth itself
— the stock in trade of journalism — has become a weapon in an exhausting blood sport, driving division, violence, and fear. Weaponizing good journalism, and the complicated truths it seeks, presents serious structural challenges for the profession the world over.
In this bleak landscape, where is opportunity? At the end of an evolutionary cycle of consolidation and commodification of journalism, the industry is ready to give way to fresh, inspired forms of experimentation.
Let’s consider a new poetics of journalism.
Like journalists, poets are keen observers of daily life. A good poet searches for the unknown, waiting for a turn toward expansive uncertainty, a cue to describe for a reader an abiding mystery, to capture the wonder and bewilderment of day to day living. Both journalists and poets cultivate awareness: Poets listening for what isn’t easily perceived in the present moment, while a good journalist concretizes perception; crafts details to be checked for accuracy, clear of bias. A disciplined journalist seek facts, counts words, seeks conclusion. The quality of a piece of writing is determined by a set of proscribed rules and constraints. A good poet is disciplined, too, but with greater freedom to use words and formations to follow an inspiration.
Are there lessons today’s beleaguered journalists can glean from the poets? Is it possible for mainstream journalism to loosen the tether of certainty to reflect the chaos of what we don’t know, can’t see, or yet understand? Could this be an antidote to the world of fear we now live in?
Three seeds toward a new poetics of journalism:
I’ve been thinking about what endures. In 125 years, when someone comes looking for us, what will they find? The hardscape — granite monuments, bridges, even mountains and rivers — eventually dissolve or give way to something unrecognizable, unverifiable. Journalists as anthropologists, social scientists, forensic experts, and poets leave a discoverable trace for those want to understand where they’ve come from. Let’s be generous with what we leave for them.
I hope for a unitive journalism, grounded in the known and open to the unknown. Brought together by this new journalism, people may have less fear, share more wonderment at the abiding mystery of being alive.
The vanguards of a new journalism are already at work in local public media newsrooms, as independent film and audio makers, at organizations and schools intent on expanding representation of whose stories are told and how. We must encourage them to experiment, to challenge the normative standards of journalism, and affirm their incalculably important role in discovering new forms to express the human experience long after we are gone.
Sue Schardt‘s transformative work in public media, as a DJ and musician, aims for the greater good. She’s anticipating the release of a new film in 2023.
We remain in the fray of a painful, destructive, and generative period. Journalism is fragile. We can point to a barrage of political and institutional failures, corruption, technology’s vulnerability to manipulation, greed. Consider that truth itself
— the stock in trade of journalism — has become a weapon in an exhausting blood sport, driving division, violence, and fear. Weaponizing good journalism, and the complicated truths it seeks, presents serious structural challenges for the profession the world over.
In this bleak landscape, where is opportunity? At the end of an evolutionary cycle of consolidation and commodification of journalism, the industry is ready to give way to fresh, inspired forms of experimentation.
Let’s consider a new poetics of journalism.
Like journalists, poets are keen observers of daily life. A good poet searches for the unknown, waiting for a turn toward expansive uncertainty, a cue to describe for a reader an abiding mystery, to capture the wonder and bewilderment of day to day living. Both journalists and poets cultivate awareness: Poets listening for what isn’t easily perceived in the present moment, while a good journalist concretizes perception; crafts details to be checked for accuracy, clear of bias. A disciplined journalist seek facts, counts words, seeks conclusion. The quality of a piece of writing is determined by a set of proscribed rules and constraints. A good poet is disciplined, too, but with greater freedom to use words and formations to follow an inspiration.
Are there lessons today’s beleaguered journalists can glean from the poets? Is it possible for mainstream journalism to loosen the tether of certainty to reflect the chaos of what we don’t know, can’t see, or yet understand? Could this be an antidote to the world of fear we now live in?
Three seeds toward a new poetics of journalism:
I’ve been thinking about what endures. In 125 years, when someone comes looking for us, what will they find? The hardscape — granite monuments, bridges, even mountains and rivers — eventually dissolve or give way to something unrecognizable, unverifiable. Journalists as anthropologists, social scientists, forensic experts, and poets leave a discoverable trace for those want to understand where they’ve come from. Let’s be generous with what we leave for them.
I hope for a unitive journalism, grounded in the known and open to the unknown. Brought together by this new journalism, people may have less fear, share more wonderment at the abiding mystery of being alive.
The vanguards of a new journalism are already at work in local public media newsrooms, as independent film and audio makers, at organizations and schools intent on expanding representation of whose stories are told and how. We must encourage them to experiment, to challenge the normative standards of journalism, and affirm their incalculably important role in discovering new forms to express the human experience long after we are gone.
Sue Schardt‘s transformative work in public media, as a DJ and musician, aims for the greater good. She’s anticipating the release of a new film in 2023.
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation