Earlier this year, I talked with some people about setting up a new publication. We had a specific focus, a budget, and a great list of potential collaborators. What we didn’t have is a shared vision for what would be the end of the publication. How would we know that it is time to throw in the towel? And then what? It wasn’t so much that my cohort and I disagreed about what to do at the end, but that we had no answers for these questions. It was reason enough to table the discussion.
We talked about the many online publications that we’ve admired over the years; many of which had a nice run and now…are not running. All the work the editors and writers put into those publications now feels stranded and buried rather than properly contextualized and reflected on. What’s eerie is when deceased online media gives readers the impression of uncertainty. There is a semi-atemporality to web interfaces, which means that even a publication that hasn’t been updated in years might look like it’s still active. That irresolute state communicates to future readers that no one cared to treat it well in its final days. Perhaps no cared about it ever.
Our conversation focused on independent publications, but the questions extend to the rollercoaster that is VC-backing and other chancy methods of funding online media, which can end abruptly or zombify into content farms or hot-take flytraps. Does anyone have any illusions about the life cycle of media anymore? In 2019 and on, it will be time to face that fact that every website, magazine, podcast, blog, and newsletter — like people — will die, and we must prepare for this event to happen with dignity or it will not.
If you are afraid to have this conversation while your media product is thriving, surely it can’t end well.
A palliative or hospice approach to ending a publication will vary product to product, but the core value is communicating the archive to future readers (“This space isn’t happening anymore, but here is what it was and why it was…”). It’s a content strategy approach that should run parallel with the technical questions of archiving material after a publication has closed. The first steps would be to reorganize the content (a dead website has different front page priorities) and write an editor’s note to eulogize. Tavi Gevinson’s widely read closing letter at Rookie is an excellent example, as well as agenda-setting.
But Medium’s The Message, a publication where I was a founding contributor, is an example of what not to do. It was once an entire vertical with op-eds and essays about technology, an editorial through-line that was still unusual in 2014. A few other aspects were unique to it, including, for better or for worse, a “collaborative editing” workflow; but some really terrific writing was published there and I was proud to be part of it. Much of the information in the archives would be of interest to someone studying the rise of social media and internet in society, but no one looking at The Message today could easily discern what it was, or why it’s no longer in operation. Part of the problem was its scattered and unsatisfactory closing strategy. Reorganized under new leadership in its final months, there was no complete finish (with a note like Gevinson’s that could contextualize it for future readers). Instead, an entirely new publication was formed, using the same name but a different staff. That publication fizzled out, leaving not just one but two publications in an incoherent zombie state. It doesn’t take much time or effort to write a note or organize content for future readers. What it requires is care. The Message communicates to future readers that no one cared about it. But that’s not true.
I’m unsure whether we will move forward with the proposed publication, but our conversation about its inevitable end was useful and healthy. And I know that we aren’t the only ones thinking about the end of a publication in tandem with the beginning. I optimistically believe that incoherent dead husks left after a beloved publication ends, will be rarer next year and onwards.
Joanne McNeil’s first book, Lurking, will be released in 2019.
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Gabriel Snyder Journalism doesn’t fit well in a funnel
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Nikki Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Angèle Christin Algorithms and the reflexive turn
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Andrew Ramsammy The great re-pivot to audio
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
Carrie Brown-Smith Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities