“Jehoshaphat!” muttered Elijah Baley. Outside his Berlin apartment, a Starship Technologies delivery bot had collided with the Lime scooter he’d just parked. Baley peered down onto the street: The scooter lay in the cycle lane surrounded by dead vape pens and glittering Cybertruck glass. A Google Traffic drone hovered above it, about a hundred meters from Tannhäuser Gate.
“Alexa, call me a taxi,” said Baley .
“You’re a taxi,” replied his Amazon Echo. Baley instantly regretted upgrading to the Amazon Prime Comedy package. “Alexa, call me a taxi, please,” he said. “To arrive in five minutes.”
“How would you like to pay?”
“Blockchain. Libra.”
“Your Autonomous Lyft will arrive at 8:06 p.m.”
That left him with five minutes to create a revenue strategy. Five minutes to save his newspaper. Five minutes to save the world.
Where was the money going to come from? Technology companies? Sure, Facebook had increased its presence in Europe. But the News Tab revenue picture was still uncertain. Accelerator money would only get them so far. The Google News Initiative had invested heavily in nonprofits in the United States. Would that money come to Europe too? And what about Microsoft? With their new AI cloud stack, media partnerships were more likely. Where the hell were Apple and Amazon in all this? He remembered that he didn’t have a Flipboard strategy. He placed his fingers on his temples and slowly exhaled.
Baley knew he could forget about “corporate social responsibility.” Companies had a growing interest in impact investing in media, but it’d never fly with his editorial board. A shame, really — he didn’t see the difference between that and the ad revenue everyone used to be so fond of. He glanced out of the window. Snow had begun to fall. Snow, in September.
More of their competitors were taking money from foundations. There were 148,000 of them in Europe — surely one could help them weather the storm? He needed some of that long-term core funding that was so in vogue. Maybe one of those pooled funds they talked about at foundation retreats would come up trumps?
Government funding? Forget it. They talk a good game. But all the Overseas Development Aid budgets were being redirected towards anti-immigration and food security objectives. The new European Union money was well intentioned but too small to make a real difference. Media literacy grants? Soon there’d be no media left to be literate about.
Baley’s iBottle buzzed, gently. It glowed green and opened up a connection to Ring, which streamed a live video feed of the street onto its curved surface. A metallic gray Polestar Lyft waited outside, door open, with four empty seats. A silver bullet.
“Jehoshaphat!” Baley looked at the blank tablet in front of him. He picked up his stylus and wrote a single word.
COMMUNITY
Elijah Baley flipped his titanium Razr2 into his pocket and stood up. In the dying light of the street outside, another Starship Technologies robot crashed into the first. Zero hour. Time to go.
Adam Thomas is director of the European Journalism Centre.
“Jehoshaphat!” muttered Elijah Baley. Outside his Berlin apartment, a Starship Technologies delivery bot had collided with the Lime scooter he’d just parked. Baley peered down onto the street: The scooter lay in the cycle lane surrounded by dead vape pens and glittering Cybertruck glass. A Google Traffic drone hovered above it, about a hundred meters from Tannhäuser Gate.
“Alexa, call me a taxi,” said Baley .
“You’re a taxi,” replied his Amazon Echo. Baley instantly regretted upgrading to the Amazon Prime Comedy package. “Alexa, call me a taxi, please,” he said. “To arrive in five minutes.”
“How would you like to pay?”
“Blockchain. Libra.”
“Your Autonomous Lyft will arrive at 8:06 p.m.”
That left him with five minutes to create a revenue strategy. Five minutes to save his newspaper. Five minutes to save the world.
Where was the money going to come from? Technology companies? Sure, Facebook had increased its presence in Europe. But the News Tab revenue picture was still uncertain. Accelerator money would only get them so far. The Google News Initiative had invested heavily in nonprofits in the United States. Would that money come to Europe too? And what about Microsoft? With their new AI cloud stack, media partnerships were more likely. Where the hell were Apple and Amazon in all this? He remembered that he didn’t have a Flipboard strategy. He placed his fingers on his temples and slowly exhaled.
Baley knew he could forget about “corporate social responsibility.” Companies had a growing interest in impact investing in media, but it’d never fly with his editorial board. A shame, really — he didn’t see the difference between that and the ad revenue everyone used to be so fond of. He glanced out of the window. Snow had begun to fall. Snow, in September.
More of their competitors were taking money from foundations. There were 148,000 of them in Europe — surely one could help them weather the storm? He needed some of that long-term core funding that was so in vogue. Maybe one of those pooled funds they talked about at foundation retreats would come up trumps?
Government funding? Forget it. They talk a good game. But all the Overseas Development Aid budgets were being redirected towards anti-immigration and food security objectives. The new European Union money was well intentioned but too small to make a real difference. Media literacy grants? Soon there’d be no media left to be literate about.
Baley’s iBottle buzzed, gently. It glowed green and opened up a connection to Ring, which streamed a live video feed of the street onto its curved surface. A metallic gray Polestar Lyft waited outside, door open, with four empty seats. A silver bullet.
“Jehoshaphat!” Baley looked at the blank tablet in front of him. He picked up his stylus and wrote a single word.
COMMUNITY
Elijah Baley flipped his titanium Razr2 into his pocket and stood up. In the dying light of the street outside, another Starship Technologies robot crashed into the first. Zero hour. Time to go.
Adam Thomas is director of the European Journalism Centre.
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Mario García Think small (screen)
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
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
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
AX Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage