My prediction for the next year is more of a prayer: that our journalism gets slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful.
The news right now feels constantly urgent, a new headline to be outraged by every day. And there’s good reason: The rise of authoritarianism across the globe, the climate crisis, vulnerable communities who are persecuted and whose rights are stripped in different corners of the world. But the high pitch of outrage, constant outrage, is exhausting and overwhelming — for our readers, for the citizens of our communities.
We’ve all read about the ways in which big tech and this outrage/attention economy of digital news has affected our world in very real ways: from deepening polarization to helping fake news spread like wildfire. And it often does a disservice to readers, viewers, and users — we rarely provide enough information to understand history and context alongside headlines; we don’t often enough tell stories that reflect the nuance and layers of communities and people living in extraordinary circumstances.
When I interviewed for one of my first jobs in journalism, an editor I admire told me that every story should serve one of two purposes: It should tell you something new that you need to know about the world. Or it should make you cry. (Or, well, be powerful storytelling that can move you and help shift the way you understand the world.)
I think back to this conversation often now when I read or listen or scroll through the news. How much of our journalism is really explaining things in a way that helps readers understand the communities they live in, the governments they vote for, the companies they support, the ways in which our world works? How are we helping readers hold their institutions to account?
How much of our best storytelling — beyond the endless true-crime podcasts — really helps us understand people, power, and the world around us? What could we learn from the writers and directors and artists and curators who earn a living telling stories to find ways to better engage our audiences on issues and stories that matter?
I hope that in the next year we start looking for inspiration to the creators of the shows we all binge-watch, or the museum exhibits we all post on Instagram. How do they engage audiences to sit with their stories for hours or days at a time? How do they create work that compels people to share? What lessons can we as professional nonfiction storytellers learn from them?
I hope journalists and newsrooms start the conversation with the question of: What information do our readers need and why? And I hope we find ways to invest more in work that answers these questions.
Masuma Ahuja is an independent journalist previously at The Washington Post and CNN.
My prediction for the next year is more of a prayer: that our journalism gets slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful.
The news right now feels constantly urgent, a new headline to be outraged by every day. And there’s good reason: The rise of authoritarianism across the globe, the climate crisis, vulnerable communities who are persecuted and whose rights are stripped in different corners of the world. But the high pitch of outrage, constant outrage, is exhausting and overwhelming — for our readers, for the citizens of our communities.
We’ve all read about the ways in which big tech and this outrage/attention economy of digital news has affected our world in very real ways: from deepening polarization to helping fake news spread like wildfire. And it often does a disservice to readers, viewers, and users — we rarely provide enough information to understand history and context alongside headlines; we don’t often enough tell stories that reflect the nuance and layers of communities and people living in extraordinary circumstances.
When I interviewed for one of my first jobs in journalism, an editor I admire told me that every story should serve one of two purposes: It should tell you something new that you need to know about the world. Or it should make you cry. (Or, well, be powerful storytelling that can move you and help shift the way you understand the world.)
I think back to this conversation often now when I read or listen or scroll through the news. How much of our journalism is really explaining things in a way that helps readers understand the communities they live in, the governments they vote for, the companies they support, the ways in which our world works? How are we helping readers hold their institutions to account?
How much of our best storytelling — beyond the endless true-crime podcasts — really helps us understand people, power, and the world around us? What could we learn from the writers and directors and artists and curators who earn a living telling stories to find ways to better engage our audiences on issues and stories that matter?
I hope that in the next year we start looking for inspiration to the creators of the shows we all binge-watch, or the museum exhibits we all post on Instagram. How do they engage audiences to sit with their stories for hours or days at a time? How do they create work that compels people to share? What lessons can we as professional nonfiction storytellers learn from them?
I hope journalists and newsrooms start the conversation with the question of: What information do our readers need and why? And I hope we find ways to invest more in work that answers these questions.
Masuma Ahuja is an independent journalist previously at The Washington Post and CNN.
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Mario García Think small (screen)
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other