What’s the future of journalism? It’s a fragile future, one that needs us to solve a crisis of lack of trust. Too many of us don’t watch or read the news anymore. In fact, we don’t trust it.
But would you trust someone if they were dispassionately observing from a distance while your rights were being stripped away? While your own future was being determined without your input? Would you trust them as a credible source of information if they thought there were two sides to whether you deserve your safety, humanity, and dignity? If your voice or experience was not reflected? Or, conversely, if they kept shouting about how everything was broken and bad without offering any solutions or support — so much so that you were left with a compounding sense of despair and helplessness?
Wouldn’t you turn elsewhere? To some source that offered you hope, a sense of belonging, the potential understanding and agency to make an impact in these tough times? A place that left you feeling less alone, maybe even cautiously hopeful?
This is the reality our industry faces. Because the headlines aren’t just things that happen elsewhere and to other people — they’re how we live our lives.
It’s time for journalism to change our approach. We work for our communities: our followers, listeners, viewers, and readers. And it’s time we started listening to them, putting them at the center of everything we do and make from the very beginning.
Because that’s the first step to understanding what’s missing, and what our communities — what we all — need from journalism.
For digital and social publishers, audience conversations often come at the end of the process — they’re numbers and metrics that determine our level of success or failure, but too rarely insights that inform our path into the future.
Here at Freeda, it’s a practice we’ve built into our foundations. We’re constantly consulting our community. We know that we can’t reflect our community, engage them, or earn their trust, if we don’t invest in understanding them. For us, the learnings are multi-layered: times are tough; young people are tired, scared, anxious. The news is dire, they don’t feel — and aren’t — reflected enough in coverage.
Add to that the fact that most spend so much of their lives on social platforms — it’s where they engage with each other and with news. These platforms contain so much promise for creativity and connection, but the reality is that algorithms are biased, the attention economy often prioritizes outrage, and social platforms have been linked to having a harmful impact on mental health.
It’s a reality I’m definitely familiar with as a user, and I’m guessing many of you are too. It’s so rare to look up from my phone after a period of scrolling and feel anything but a little empty, outraged, or bleak.
For us, this has meant building an approach that keeps our community and their needs at the center of our entire process. So in addition to interrogating every story’s journalistic merits, we also ask who it centers and how it leaves someone feeling. Can we leave people with a sense of belonging? A sense of purpose or of wonder? A sense of agency even in the face of systemic problems?
So I’ll leave you with a question that’s my north star: What would the future of journalism look like, if we built not just for our communities, but also with them?
Masuma Ahuja is head of content for Freeda English, a European social publisher.
What’s the future of journalism? It’s a fragile future, one that needs us to solve a crisis of lack of trust. Too many of us don’t watch or read the news anymore. In fact, we don’t trust it.
But would you trust someone if they were dispassionately observing from a distance while your rights were being stripped away? While your own future was being determined without your input? Would you trust them as a credible source of information if they thought there were two sides to whether you deserve your safety, humanity, and dignity? If your voice or experience was not reflected? Or, conversely, if they kept shouting about how everything was broken and bad without offering any solutions or support — so much so that you were left with a compounding sense of despair and helplessness?
Wouldn’t you turn elsewhere? To some source that offered you hope, a sense of belonging, the potential understanding and agency to make an impact in these tough times? A place that left you feeling less alone, maybe even cautiously hopeful?
This is the reality our industry faces. Because the headlines aren’t just things that happen elsewhere and to other people — they’re how we live our lives.
It’s time for journalism to change our approach. We work for our communities: our followers, listeners, viewers, and readers. And it’s time we started listening to them, putting them at the center of everything we do and make from the very beginning.
Because that’s the first step to understanding what’s missing, and what our communities — what we all — need from journalism.
For digital and social publishers, audience conversations often come at the end of the process — they’re numbers and metrics that determine our level of success or failure, but too rarely insights that inform our path into the future.
Here at Freeda, it’s a practice we’ve built into our foundations. We’re constantly consulting our community. We know that we can’t reflect our community, engage them, or earn their trust, if we don’t invest in understanding them. For us, the learnings are multi-layered: times are tough; young people are tired, scared, anxious. The news is dire, they don’t feel — and aren’t — reflected enough in coverage.
Add to that the fact that most spend so much of their lives on social platforms — it’s where they engage with each other and with news. These platforms contain so much promise for creativity and connection, but the reality is that algorithms are biased, the attention economy often prioritizes outrage, and social platforms have been linked to having a harmful impact on mental health.
It’s a reality I’m definitely familiar with as a user, and I’m guessing many of you are too. It’s so rare to look up from my phone after a period of scrolling and feel anything but a little empty, outraged, or bleak.
For us, this has meant building an approach that keeps our community and their needs at the center of our entire process. So in addition to interrogating every story’s journalistic merits, we also ask who it centers and how it leaves someone feeling. Can we leave people with a sense of belonging? A sense of purpose or of wonder? A sense of agency even in the face of systemic problems?
So I’ll leave you with a question that’s my north star: What would the future of journalism look like, if we built not just for our communities, but also with them?
Masuma Ahuja is head of content for Freeda English, a European social publisher.
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Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
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Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
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Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
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Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
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Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
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Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
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Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
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Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
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Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
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Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
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Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
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Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
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Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
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David Cohn AI made this prediction
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Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
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Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
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Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
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Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
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Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
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Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
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Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
James Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development