For my first decade or so in journalism, I worked in newsrooms that printed and distributed free daily newspapers — tens of thousands of them, all in search of new ways to put advertising in front of readers. I was a print designer at the time, and I found the work more interesting than at a lot of the broadsheet alternatives, so I stuck with it across three separate papers.
Forgot about the free-commuter-paper boom? Well, it’s a reminder that the “pivot to video” was far from the first industry trend to sweep across journalism. (A few others I’ve dipped my fingers into over the years: hyperlocal news, real-time news, and email newsletters. The latter seems to be holding up — fingers crossed.)
The free daily newspaper took a couple of tough blows in 2019 with the deaths of the Washington Post Express, a paper I used to work at, along with the original Swedish edition of Metro, which kicked off the global trend a quarter-century ago. When we lost Express, one of the most successful American examples of the commuter paper trend, I felt compelled to write about it, of course. While free commuter dailies still work in some international markets, and some former free U.S. dailies (like Chicago’s Red Eye and Florida’s tbt*) have evolved into weekly arts publications, the embers in that fire are largely dying out. (Express, famously, blamed the smartphone on its final cover.)
As we mostly said goodbye to the free daily newspaper in the U.S., I wonder if it’s a harbinger of other ambitious risk-taking that’s set to fade out in the future — especially at the local level, where these publications (for example, my beloved former employer Link, published by The Virginian-Pilot between 2006 and 2008) really shone.
The industry contractions we’re seeing aren’t just limited to print or limited to newspapers. Those pivots to video turned into pivots to layoffs; we’ve seen private equity turn successful newsrooms, most infamously Deadspin, into zombies.
I’m afraid that, as long the people with the money keep scraping away at the edges, we’re going to see a lot less experimentation from mid-sized media outlets. Instead, it’ll be the domain of folks who don’t have money but are willing to work hard to do the innovating they can’t do on the clock.
New fads and new trends come to life when people have extra pockets of time to try new things. Think of Google’s ballyhooed 20 percent time. But when newsrooms are struggling to put out the daily product, I have to wonder: Will the experimenters start to go somewhere else?
Ernie Smith is the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter.
For my first decade or so in journalism, I worked in newsrooms that printed and distributed free daily newspapers — tens of thousands of them, all in search of new ways to put advertising in front of readers. I was a print designer at the time, and I found the work more interesting than at a lot of the broadsheet alternatives, so I stuck with it across three separate papers.
Forgot about the free-commuter-paper boom? Well, it’s a reminder that the “pivot to video” was far from the first industry trend to sweep across journalism. (A few others I’ve dipped my fingers into over the years: hyperlocal news, real-time news, and email newsletters. The latter seems to be holding up — fingers crossed.)
The free daily newspaper took a couple of tough blows in 2019 with the deaths of the Washington Post Express, a paper I used to work at, along with the original Swedish edition of Metro, which kicked off the global trend a quarter-century ago. When we lost Express, one of the most successful American examples of the commuter paper trend, I felt compelled to write about it, of course. While free commuter dailies still work in some international markets, and some former free U.S. dailies (like Chicago’s Red Eye and Florida’s tbt*) have evolved into weekly arts publications, the embers in that fire are largely dying out. (Express, famously, blamed the smartphone on its final cover.)
As we mostly said goodbye to the free daily newspaper in the U.S., I wonder if it’s a harbinger of other ambitious risk-taking that’s set to fade out in the future — especially at the local level, where these publications (for example, my beloved former employer Link, published by The Virginian-Pilot between 2006 and 2008) really shone.
The industry contractions we’re seeing aren’t just limited to print or limited to newspapers. Those pivots to video turned into pivots to layoffs; we’ve seen private equity turn successful newsrooms, most infamously Deadspin, into zombies.
I’m afraid that, as long the people with the money keep scraping away at the edges, we’re going to see a lot less experimentation from mid-sized media outlets. Instead, it’ll be the domain of folks who don’t have money but are willing to work hard to do the innovating they can’t do on the clock.
New fads and new trends come to life when people have extra pockets of time to try new things. Think of Google’s ballyhooed 20 percent time. But when newsrooms are struggling to put out the daily product, I have to wonder: Will the experimenters start to go somewhere else?
Ernie Smith is the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter.
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Mario García Think small (screen)
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within