20200
P
1
20100
R  E
2
2070
D   I   C
3
2050
T   I   O   N
4
2040
S   F   O   R   J
5
2030
O  U  R  N  A  L
6
2020
I  S  M  2  0  2  0
7

We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏

“Our devices, digital platforms, and technological advances have amplified and evolved our ‘always on’ culture to one that is ‘extremely online’ — and it’s taking a toll.”

2020 will be the news cycle to end all news cycles. And while the presidential election looms large for most of us, it won’t eclipse or replace the everyday coverage our newsrooms are committed to. We’re in the business of expecting the unexpected — the inevitable tragedy of mass shootings, natural disasters and, for those of us in California, wildfires, power shutoffs, and earthquakes.

2020 is going to be rough. The wall that we all will hit eventually sits steadfast in the distance, and there’s no knocking it down — there’s no silver bulldozer. What we can do is take this moment as an opportunity to evaluate the newsroom cultures we’ve upheld, attempt positive change, and break some bad habits.

Journalism is an industry that values hard work; being “always on” isn’t a new concept for most of us. But our devices, digital platforms, and technological advances have amplified and evolved our “always on” culture to one that is “extremely online” — and it’s taking a toll. The mechanisms around digital news are changing constantly, and with that, so do the jobs, responsibilities, and viability of someone in a newer, less traditional role in the newsroom. Think about how defined the role of a “reporter” or “editor” can be compared to a “digital producer,” “news apps developer,” or “audience specialist.”

As a woman and/or a journalist of color working in one of these newer positions, on a more uncharted path, the ambiguity can mean a lack of support, and our industry-wide shortfall in diversity and inclusion can lead to a stressful level of loneliness. Not to mention, the diversity work to address these issues is being done outside of most people’s tangible responsibilities and often goes unacknowledged.

So, I want to focus on one thing we can all do for ourselves in 2020: Take 👏 breaks 👏. And if you’re in a position of power, model and facilitate the taking of breaks.

Managers: Going into the new year, we must be intentional about building and nurturing a culture that signals to the newsroom that it’s okay to take breaks. In order to contend with the pace — and trauma — of everything we’re reporting, we will need to find our journalists the space and time to cope.

At KQED, this means having conversations now about how we can start building for the fall crescendo. I’m looking at moving reviews earlier so that they don’t occur during peak election and wildfire seasons. I go on vacation and crow about the benefits of taking time off. I tell my team I want to see more paid time-off requests in my inbox. Across the newsroom, we have — and prompt — open discussions about self-care, our interests outside of work and the best hacks for unplugging.

The biggest, most intentional break I’ve started to take in my new role at KQED is self-imposed media blackouts, a short period of time with a clear start and end. And depending on what your vice apps are, if you just can’t delete ’em, turn off the notifications during this stretch. For me, it’s Slack, email, and Twitter.

Colleagues, peers, and teammates: Check in on each other. Find or create safe spaces where you can have candid and sincere discussions. Take those breaks! Leave the office — ask one another to lunch, coffee, or a walk. Use those vacation days! Whether or not you go on a trip, a mental and physical break from work is healthy and rejuvenating.

Let’s be honest: We’re terrible at taking vacations. On top of that, our concept of time is broken and our keyboards are disgusting. So while we’ve been planning coverage and staffing up for 2020, there’s another dimension to our strategies that will be more important than ever as the new year ramps up: our health, both mental and physical.

This prediction isn’t about emerging tech or a new trend. It just speaks to the oldest, most crucial tool we need to do journalism (🚨 earnesty alert): the journalists themselves. Let’s take better care of the people who do the work.

Julia B. Chan is managing editor of digital at KQED News in San Francisco.

2020 will be the news cycle to end all news cycles. And while the presidential election looms large for most of us, it won’t eclipse or replace the everyday coverage our newsrooms are committed to. We’re in the business of expecting the unexpected — the inevitable tragedy of mass shootings, natural disasters and, for those of us in California, wildfires, power shutoffs, and earthquakes.

2020 is going to be rough. The wall that we all will hit eventually sits steadfast in the distance, and there’s no knocking it down — there’s no silver bulldozer. What we can do is take this moment as an opportunity to evaluate the newsroom cultures we’ve upheld, attempt positive change, and break some bad habits.

Journalism is an industry that values hard work; being “always on” isn’t a new concept for most of us. But our devices, digital platforms, and technological advances have amplified and evolved our “always on” culture to one that is “extremely online” — and it’s taking a toll. The mechanisms around digital news are changing constantly, and with that, so do the jobs, responsibilities, and viability of someone in a newer, less traditional role in the newsroom. Think about how defined the role of a “reporter” or “editor” can be compared to a “digital producer,” “news apps developer,” or “audience specialist.”

As a woman and/or a journalist of color working in one of these newer positions, on a more uncharted path, the ambiguity can mean a lack of support, and our industry-wide shortfall in diversity and inclusion can lead to a stressful level of loneliness. Not to mention, the diversity work to address these issues is being done outside of most people’s tangible responsibilities and often goes unacknowledged.

So, I want to focus on one thing we can all do for ourselves in 2020: Take 👏 breaks 👏. And if you’re in a position of power, model and facilitate the taking of breaks.

Managers: Going into the new year, we must be intentional about building and nurturing a culture that signals to the newsroom that it’s okay to take breaks. In order to contend with the pace — and trauma — of everything we’re reporting, we will need to find our journalists the space and time to cope.

At KQED, this means having conversations now about how we can start building for the fall crescendo. I’m looking at moving reviews earlier so that they don’t occur during peak election and wildfire seasons. I go on vacation and crow about the benefits of taking time off. I tell my team I want to see more paid time-off requests in my inbox. Across the newsroom, we have — and prompt — open discussions about self-care, our interests outside of work and the best hacks for unplugging.

The biggest, most intentional break I’ve started to take in my new role at KQED is self-imposed media blackouts, a short period of time with a clear start and end. And depending on what your vice apps are, if you just can’t delete ’em, turn off the notifications during this stretch. For me, it’s Slack, email, and Twitter.

Colleagues, peers, and teammates: Check in on each other. Find or create safe spaces where you can have candid and sincere discussions. Take those breaks! Leave the office — ask one another to lunch, coffee, or a walk. Use those vacation days! Whether or not you go on a trip, a mental and physical break from work is healthy and rejuvenating.

Let’s be honest: We’re terrible at taking vacations. On top of that, our concept of time is broken and our keyboards are disgusting. So while we’ve been planning coverage and staffing up for 2020, there’s another dimension to our strategies that will be more important than ever as the new year ramps up: our health, both mental and physical.

This prediction isn’t about emerging tech or a new trend. It just speaks to the oldest, most crucial tool we need to do journalism (🚨 earnesty alert): the journalists themselves. Let’s take better care of the people who do the work.

Julia B. Chan is managing editor of digital at KQED News in San Francisco.

Marie Gilot   This is fine

Sonali Prasad   Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional

Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb   Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage

AX Mina   The Forum we wanted, the forum we got

Whitney Phillips   A time to question core beliefs

Simon Galperin   Journalism becomes more democratic

Pablo Boczkowski   The day after November 4

Errin Haines   Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story

Lucas Graves   A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters

S. Mitra Kalita   The race to 2021

Alana Levinson   Brand-backed media gets another look

Juleyka Lantigua   A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions

Heather Bryant   Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving

Matthew Pressman   News consumers divide into haves and have-nots

Cory Haik   We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it

Colleen Shalby   Journalists become media literacy teachers

Emily Withrow   The year we kill the news article

Meredith Artley   Stronger solidarity among news organizations

Victor Pickard   We reclaim a public good

Jeremy Olshan   All journalism should be service journalism

Carl Bialik   Journalists will try running the whole shop

Kathleen Searles   Pay more attention to attention

Knight Foundation   Five generations of journalists, learning from each other

Seth C. Lewis   20 questions for 2020

Mario García   Think small (screen)

Jakob Moll   A slow-moving tech backlash among young people

Moreno Cruz Osório   In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks

Adam Thomas   The silver bullet

Hossein Derakhshan   AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris

Helen Havlak   Platforms shine a light on original reporting

Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor   Think twice before turning to Twitter

Francesco Zaffarano   TikTok without generational prejudice

Dan Shanoff   Sports media enters the Bronny era

Nushin Rashidian   Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?

Michael W. Wagner   Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative

Annie Rudd   The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph

Catalina Albeanu   Rebuilding journalism, together

Jonas Kaiser   Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists

Christa Scharfenberg   It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen   The business we want, not the business we had

Alexandra Borchardt   Get out of the office and talk to people

Dannagal G. Young   Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart

Sara K. Baranowski   A big year for little newspapers

Ernie Smith   The death of the industry fad

Doris Truong   The year of radical salary transparency

Cristina Kim   Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”

Sue Robinson   Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments

Elizabeth Dunbar   Frank talk, and then action

Josh Schwartz   Publishers move beyond the metered paywall

Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz   News coverage gets geo-fragmented

Laura E. Davis   Know the context your journalism is operating within

Masuma Ahuja   Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful

Nikki Usher   All systems down

Monica Drake   A renewed focus on misinformation

Kristen Muller   The year we operationalize community engagement

Kerri Hoffman   Opening closed systems

Jasmine McNealy   A call for context

M. Scott Havens   First-party data becomes media’s most important currency

Sarah Stonbely   More people start caring about news inequality

Logan Jaffe   You don’t need fancy tools to listen

Meg Marco   Everything happens somewhere

Mira Lowe   The year of student-powered journalism

Rachel Davis Mersey   The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide

Jim Brady   We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own

Fiona Spruill   The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves

Sarah Marshall   The year to learn about news moments

Raney Aronson-Rath   News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions

Imaeyen Ibanga   Let’s take it slow

Candis Callison   Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change

Joanne McNeil   A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)

Zizi Papacharissi   A president leads, the press follows, reality fades

Felix Salmon   Spotify launches a news channel

Jeff Kofman   Speed through technology

Tonya Mosley   The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends

Margarita Noriega   The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms

Ståle Grut   OSINT journalism goes mainstream

Mariana Moura Santos   The future of journalism is collaborative

Julia B. Chan   We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏

Stefanie Murray   Charitable giving goes collaborative

Rachel Glickhouse   Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline

Irving Washington   Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job

Joshua P. Darr   All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse

Monique Judge   The year to organize, unionize, and fight

Linda Solomon Wood   Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal

A.J. Bauer   A fork in the road for conservative media

Nico Gendron   Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z

Anthony Nadler   Clash of Clans: Election Edition

Brian Moritz   The end of “stick to sports”

Sarah Schmalbach   Journalist, quantify thyself

Jake Shapiro   Podcasting gets listener relationship management

John Keefe   Journalism gets hacked

Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young   The promise of nonprofit journalism

Brenda P. Salinas   Treating MP3 files like text

Craig Newmark   Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation

Joe Amditis   Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table

Don Day   Respect the non-paying audience

Joni Deutsch   Podcasting unsilences the silent

Kevin D. Grant   The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth

Carrie Brown-Smith   Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening

Nicholas Jackson   What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support

Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper   Power to the people (on your audience team)

Bill Adair   A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song

Tom Glaisyer   Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful

Beena Raghavendran   The year of the local engagement reporter

Geneva Overholser   Death to bothsidesism

Nathalie Malinarich   Betting on loyalty

Tamar Charney   From broadcast to bespoke

Heidi Tworek   The year of positive pushback

Gordon Crovitz   Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms

Greg Emerson   News apps fall further behind

Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker   A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech

Eric Nuzum   Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show

Rachel Schallom   The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates

Mike Caulfield   Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd

Sarah Alvarez   I’m ready for post-news

Rick Berke   Incoming fire from both left and right

Tanya Cordrey   Saying no to more good ideas

Bill Grueskin   Our ethics codes get an overhaul

Lauren Duca   The rise of the journalistic influencer

Alice Antheaume   Trade “politics” for “power”

Cindy Royal   Prepare media students for skills, not job titles

Millie Tran   Wicked

Richard Tofel   A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges

Ben Werdmuller   Use the tools of journalism to save it

Peter Bale   Lies get further normalized

Jennifer Brandel   A love letter from the year 2073

J. Siguru Wahutu   Western journalists, learn from your African peers

Steve Henn   The dawning audio web

Kourtney Bitterly   Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation

Matt DeRienzo   Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers

Barbara Gray   Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement

John Garrett   It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization

Talia Stroud   The work of reconnecting starts November 4