Expect another tough year for journalism.
Neither dual antitrust lawsuits against Facebook from the FTC and 46 state attorneys general nor the DOJ’s monopoly case against Google will funnel money to news operations in 2021. Wonks and media watchers will tune to C-SPAN, hopeful that legal action will ease the duopoly’s chokehold on ad dollars, but that won’t happen without a prolonged fight. Remember: The Microsoft case spanned nearly a decade. And many journalism outlets can’t survive that long without radical evolution.
In 2021, expect more noble and/or hopeful but modest efforts to direct money to journalists and newsrooms, deeply roiled long before the contagion locked down Wuhan. But expect those efforts to sustain too few newsrooms. More subject specialists will flock to Substack, hopeful of emulating Andrew Sullivan’s successful subscription model. But really: How many deserving newsletters or sites can one admirer afford — or consume?
Still, expect more newsrooms to secure some grants, (eventually) hold events, and push subscriptions and memberships, perhaps garnering a few more adherents but not enough to guarantee longevity.
Gird for too few renewals or continuing support — not just because so many Americans are in financial distress, but because as people step farther from their keyboards as the pandemic ebbs, many will tire of reading about political, biological and financial chaos. They’ll start deleting newsletters unread as fast as spam, until they are moved to cancel. Then they’ll return to relying on the convenient social pipelines filled with fluff and fakery, namely Facebook, Instagram, and Google. (Little will change at those platforms beyond hiring more lawyers to fight regulators and federal officials).
The Fourth Estate will remain in dire circumstances, with too few billionaires and well-intended donors to ensure the long-term gainful employment of professional and ethical reporters (and editors, designers, product managers, et al.) to do the time- and resource-intensive watchdogging of individuals, institutions and government that protects our democracy.
In yet another Darwinian year, the technologically sophisticated and financially stable New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal will be fine. That’s good for them, as their journalism and interactives are often stellar, but reliance on too few reputable news sources antagonizes the right and contributes to echo chambers, efficiently elevated by algorighms. And guess which platforms are best at monetizing those?
The same ones that deservingly are in the legal hot seat. In 2021, let’s hope for faster inroads in breaking barriers and finding solutions to ensure that journalism survives and thrives.
And fingers crossed that Report For America wins the $100 million MacArthur Foundation grant, which I would predict will happen but don’t want to jinx anything.
Jody Brannon is director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty.
Expect another tough year for journalism.
Neither dual antitrust lawsuits against Facebook from the FTC and 46 state attorneys general nor the DOJ’s monopoly case against Google will funnel money to news operations in 2021. Wonks and media watchers will tune to C-SPAN, hopeful that legal action will ease the duopoly’s chokehold on ad dollars, but that won’t happen without a prolonged fight. Remember: The Microsoft case spanned nearly a decade. And many journalism outlets can’t survive that long without radical evolution.
In 2021, expect more noble and/or hopeful but modest efforts to direct money to journalists and newsrooms, deeply roiled long before the contagion locked down Wuhan. But expect those efforts to sustain too few newsrooms. More subject specialists will flock to Substack, hopeful of emulating Andrew Sullivan’s successful subscription model. But really: How many deserving newsletters or sites can one admirer afford — or consume?
Still, expect more newsrooms to secure some grants, (eventually) hold events, and push subscriptions and memberships, perhaps garnering a few more adherents but not enough to guarantee longevity.
Gird for too few renewals or continuing support — not just because so many Americans are in financial distress, but because as people step farther from their keyboards as the pandemic ebbs, many will tire of reading about political, biological and financial chaos. They’ll start deleting newsletters unread as fast as spam, until they are moved to cancel. Then they’ll return to relying on the convenient social pipelines filled with fluff and fakery, namely Facebook, Instagram, and Google. (Little will change at those platforms beyond hiring more lawyers to fight regulators and federal officials).
The Fourth Estate will remain in dire circumstances, with too few billionaires and well-intended donors to ensure the long-term gainful employment of professional and ethical reporters (and editors, designers, product managers, et al.) to do the time- and resource-intensive watchdogging of individuals, institutions and government that protects our democracy.
In yet another Darwinian year, the technologically sophisticated and financially stable New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal will be fine. That’s good for them, as their journalism and interactives are often stellar, but reliance on too few reputable news sources antagonizes the right and contributes to echo chambers, efficiently elevated by algorighms. And guess which platforms are best at monetizing those?
The same ones that deservingly are in the legal hot seat. In 2021, let’s hope for faster inroads in breaking barriers and finding solutions to ensure that journalism survives and thrives.
And fingers crossed that Report For America wins the $100 million MacArthur Foundation grant, which I would predict will happen but don’t want to jinx anything.
Jody Brannon is director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty.
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking