As all readers of Nieman Lab already know, Truth is under assault. In the year ahead, news organizations are going to be tested like never before to reconcile long-held notions of impartiality with a barrage of lies, half-truths, and obfuscations coming from public figures and political operatives. Journalists who have built up a reputation for fairness over the course of lifetime will be accused of partisanship like never before.
News leaders will need to be brave enough to resist the urge to overcorrect, make concessions for access, seek equivalencies where they don’t exist or worse, or compromise in language, imagery, headlines, and voice.
Vivian Schiller is a former top executive at Twitter, NPR, NBC, CNN, and The New York Times.
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
David Weigel A test for online speech
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom