Among the predictions published in this series last year, none proved more prescient than Rachel Sklar’s “Women are Going to Get Loud.” It’s as if Rachel got an advance copy of Time’s Person of the Year issue — really advance.
The #MeToo movement has been an efficient juggernaut, blasting open decades of workplace hostility and harassment, and nowhere has it gotten more attention than in the field of media. (So much for “report the story, don’t become the story.”) Certainly, media is not the only industry so plagued by misogyny — there are others where it’s even more widespread. Nonetheless, it’s the media’s job to expose these outbreaks and it can’t even begin to help in that regard until it puts on its own oxygen mask.
The main consequences of this reckoning have been terminations, resignations, leaves of absence. And so it happens that there are suddenly a whole lot of vacancies in leadership roles across many media organizations. Already we’re seeing some of these roles filled by women. Expect that trend to accelerate and expand. There’s a surfeit of female talent that’s been sitting too long on the bench.
It never made sense for journalism to skew so heavily male at its highest ranks for so long. Media corporations can’t say with a straight face that it’s a “pipeline problem” with regards to women eager to study, work, and lead in journalism, as technology titans feebly do. According to Poynter, journalism schools award diplomas to women at a more than 2 to 1 ratio. Per ASNE, that ratio somehow flips in terms of newsroom supervisory roles, with women comprising only 37 percent. Media is storytelling, communication, information dissemination…we’re not talking about the defense industry or investment banking. These are skills women have long been stereotyped for having mastered — and yet, haven’t yet been deemed authoritative enough in to be awarded a mantle of leadership. Isn’t it ironic?
That all ends next year. My prediction is not solely that media leadership will be feminized, but that news itself will take on a new, more feminine, tone. No, this doesn’t mean more articles on weight loss and beauty trends. Instead, it means that women will be seen as reliable sources and the sexism embedded into articles about women’s issues and female public figures (“Who were they wearing?”) won’t make it past first edit. It also means we can expect newsroom resources dedicated to uncovering stories of other underserved and underreported communities. This means we can expect more two-way communication between storytellers and readers — something more authentic and constructive than a comments section.
I expect the female media takeover will bring also bring a novel remedy to the phenomenon of so-called fake news and the overall stratification of media along ideological lines. Don’t ask me how I know — it’s just my woman’s intuition. 2017 wasn’t pretty for our industry, but there’s hope for 2018. This time next year, “content is queen” will roll right off the tongue.
Jennifer Coogan is chief content officer of Newsela.
Ståle Grut Reclaiming audience interaction from social networks
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Yvonne Leow The rise of video messaging
Sam Ford The year of investing in processes
Vivian Schiller Pivot to tomorrow
Andrew Haeg The year journalists become relationship builders
Tanzina Vega It’s time for media companies to #PassTheMic
Jessica Parker Gilbert Design connects storytelling and strategy
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer Skepticism and narcissism
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Rachel Schallom Better design helps differentiate opinion and news
Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
Trushar Barot The Jio-fication of India
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Marcela Donini and Thiago Herdy Collaboration is the way forward for Brazilian journalism
Hossein Derakhshan Television has won
Emily Goligoski Looking beyond news for inspiration
Mario García Storytelling finally adapts to mobile
Sally Lehrman Trust comes first
Rodney Benson Better, less read, and less trusted
Sara M. Watson Feeds will open up to new user-determined filters
Jared Newman Venture funding and digital news don’t mix
Lam Thuy Vo Breaking free from the tyranny of the loudest
Mariano Blejman News games rule
Dheerja Kaur Fun with subscription products
Imaeyen Ibanga Longform video leads the way
Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
Frédéric Filloux External forces
Amie Ferris-Rotman More female reporters abroad (please)
Tim Carmody Watch out for Spotify
Juleyka Lantigua Women of color will reclaim and monetize our time
P. Kim Bui The reckoning is only beginning
Feli Sánchez The year for guerrilla user research
Molly de Aguiar Good journalism won’t be enough
Michelle Garcia Navigating journalistic transparency
Will Sommer The year local media gets conservative
Laura E. Davis Writing answers before you know the question
Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
Sarah Marshall Loyalty as the key performance indicator
Heather Bryant Building the ecosystems for collaboration
Joanne Lipman Journalists inventing revenue streams
Luke O'Neil The end is already here
José Zamora Revenue-first journalism
Kyle Ellis Let’s build our way out of this
Matt DeRienzo A recession, then a collapse
Jim Brady With the people, not just of the people
Hannah Cassius The year of the echo-chamber escapists
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
Jamie Mottram From pageviews to t-shirts
Umbreen Bhatti The trust problem isn’t new
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Publishing less to give readers more
Michael Kuntz The only pivot that might work
Tanya Cordrey Finally, the seeds of radical reinvention
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
Francesco Marconi The year of machine-to-machine journalism
Edward Roussel Eyes, ears, and brains
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
Matt Boggie The intellectual equivalent of the Dead Sea
Emma Carew Grovum Newsroom culture becomes a priority
Michelle Ferrier The year of the great reckoning
Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Cory Haik Suffering from realness, pivoting to impact
Federica Cherubini The rise of bridge roles in news organizations
Nicholas Quah Stop talking trash about young people
Aron Pilhofer We can’t leave the business to the business side any more
Matt Carlson Attacks on the press will get worse
Alastair Coote The year of self-improvement
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Monique Judge Letting black women tell their own stories
Andrew Ramsammy The year ownership mattered
Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Mira Lowe The year of the local watchdog
Cristina Wilson The year of the Instagram Story
Nushin Rashidian Publishers seek ad dollar alternatives
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Andrew Losowsky The year of resilience
AX Mina Memes and visuals come to the fore
Raju Narisetti Mirror, mirror on the wall
Jim Moroney Newspapers have to be good enough for readers to pay for
Alice Antheaume Are you fluent in AI?
Monika Bauerlein The firehose of falsehood
Ruth Palmer Risks will grow for news subjects — especially minorities
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Raney Aronson-Rath Transparency is the antidote to fake news
Matt Thompson Here come the attention managers
Jennifer Choi Standing up for us and for each other
Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Pete Brown Push alerts, personalized
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The Snapchat scenario and the risk of more closed platforms
Renée Kaplan The year of quiet adjustments (shhh)
Manoush Zomorodi Self-help as a publishing strategy
Debra Adams Simmons And a woman shall lead them
Mandy Velez texting is lit rn, fam
Sydette Harry Listen to your corner and watch for the hook
Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
Doris Truong Computer vision vs. the Internet vigilantes
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
Juliette De Maeyer A responsible press criticism
Felix Salmon Covering bitcoin while owning bitcoin
Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
Caitria O'Neill The new court of public opinion
Borja Echevarría TV goes digital, digital goes TV
Alan Soon The rise of start of psychographic, micro-targeted media
Cindy Royal Your journalism curriculum is obsolete
Jesse Holcomb Information disorder, coming to a congressional district near you
Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Kawandeep Virdee Zines had it right all along
Zizi Papacharissi Women come back
Jarrod Dicker Honesty in advertising
Amy King Let’s amplify visual voice
Niketa Patel Live journalism comes of age
S. Mitra Kalita The arc of news and audience
Eric Ulken The year local publishers get smart(er) about change
Corey Ford The empire strikes back
Rick Berke Value is the watchword
Helen Havlak Keywords, not publishers, power the world’s biggest feeds
Kathleen McElroy Building a news video experience native to mobile
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Mary Meehan Real lives are at stake in rural areas
Miguel Castro The arrival of the impact producer
Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Mary Walter-Brown Show a little vulnerability
Jennifer Coogan The future is female
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Jacqui Cheng Retailers move into content
Dannagal G. Young Stop covering politics as a game
Eric Nuzum Beyond the narrative arc
Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
Julia B. Chan Looking for loyalty in all the right places
Kim Fox Audience teams diversify their approach
Lanre Akinola Making noise is not a strategy
Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Pia Frey Address users as individuals
Daniel Trielli The rich get richer, the poor scramble
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
Lucas Graves From algorithms to institutions
Christopher Meighan Passive partnership is in the rearview
Susie Banikarim R.I.P. Pivot to Video (2017–2017)
Jassim Ahmad Thriving on change
Caitlin Thompson Podcasting models mature and diversify
Alexios Mantzarlis Moving fake news research out of the lab
Charo Henríquez Training is an investment, not an expense
Carlos Martínez de la Serna The new journalism commons