So yeah, that’s a provocative headline. It feels accusatory, exclusionary, even hurtful. Welcome to the news-reading experience of vast swaths of the population.
We have to face the truth. Most mainstream news outlets create harm in our communities. They misrepresent, exploit experiences, scapegoat those experiencing marginalization and even drive further harm through racist, transphobic, classist, ableist, patriarchal. and capitalist reporting. This is true of the U.K. where we’ve been working together — and on different levels experiencing harm first-hand — but it is also true of legacy media in the U.S. and around the world.
“I don’t see many people like me on the news, but I’m quite happy about that. I don’t trust the news trying to tell our stories.” This is what a Muslim woman told Bureau Local (U.K.) when trying to explain her fear of the media.
Time’s up on news outlets that operate this way for profit, political influence, and the protection of the status quo. The good news (no pun intended) is that projects like Media 2070 (U.S.), BBC and Beyond (U.K.), and organizations like The Objective (U.S.) are filling the accountability vacuum and challenging the very industry that holds up “accountability” and “holding truth to power” as its most celebrated anthems.
Tomorrow’s news industry will change as a result of this accountability. It will challenge the often heard excuse that these communities are “hard to reach” and acknowledge they have been badly served and are reached and served best when ownership and representation is rooted in communities. Just look at the growing number of community newsrooms and initiatives that put equity and community power at the heart of their operations. In the U.K., see Greater Govanhill, The Ferret, The Bristol Cable, Black Ballad, and Gal Dem. In the U.S. see City Bureau, Outlier Media, Scalawag, Resolve Philly, Tiny News Collective and the Future of Local News Coalition’s prediction this year to dream bigger or lose out.
Tomorrow’s journalism will act on multiple fronts. It will challenge the power this industry has hoarded and weaponized for too long. It will share and shift that power (Check out this, this, and this). Crucially, it will support the building of new power in communities. Integral to this is for those of us inside to stop centering ourselves and trying to own the solutions, stop looking only within our small, privileged industry and to step aside, make space, and get behind others.
This past year, via The People’s Newsroom, we ran a pilot to support those who’ve been harmed by the media to reclaim it for their benefit. In doing so, we met tomorrow’s leaders.
We met Shakria Morka, who said, “As a Black, disabled woman, the experiences of neurotypical white men who have dominated traditional journalism are directly oppositional to mine.” She called for transformational inclusion and said, “Inclusion means truly valuing the contributions, perspectives and lived experience of marginalized people and allowing us to take up paid roles.” She said the work is not inclusive “if the nature of journalism itself does not change and if we fail to rip apart harmful stereotypes and consult communities.”
We met Shazia Ali, who said that opening a newspaper filled her with trepidation as she feared what Islamaphobic slur would then show up in physical hate. Yet when she discovered Amaliah, a Muslim women’s publication in the U.K., she said, “When I go on to Amaliah’s site, “I can breathe easier. That is what news belonging feels like.” She’s now a BBC journalism apprentice, and says she’s “doing it for all the communities that the news has failed.”
Shazia’s mantra is where the future lies. Tomorrow’s journalism belongs to those who’ve been excluded, harmed, and failed by the media. It belongs to the communities that most need its power. In their hands it can be reimagined and reclaimed as a true community service that enacts positive change.
We all know there is a crisis in journalism. There is a breakdown in the business model and a breakdown in trust, and those two things are not unrelated. That is down to who holds the power and who tells the stories. This is because, for the group of people running the industry, the system works just fine as it is. Yet it’s worth remembering that they actually represent a tiny proportion of the population. It’s impossible for them to reflect the true richness of society, but if we let them, they will preside over the death of journalism.
So, we’re not going to let them. We’re going to shift this power and support the next generation of journalists, editors, and owners to reclaim journalism for us all.
Megan Lucero is the founder of the Bureau Local and People’s Newsroom. Shirish Kulkarni is a journalist, researcher and community organizer.
So yeah, that’s a provocative headline. It feels accusatory, exclusionary, even hurtful. Welcome to the news-reading experience of vast swaths of the population.
We have to face the truth. Most mainstream news outlets create harm in our communities. They misrepresent, exploit experiences, scapegoat those experiencing marginalization and even drive further harm through racist, transphobic, classist, ableist, patriarchal. and capitalist reporting. This is true of the U.K. where we’ve been working together — and on different levels experiencing harm first-hand — but it is also true of legacy media in the U.S. and around the world.
“I don’t see many people like me on the news, but I’m quite happy about that. I don’t trust the news trying to tell our stories.” This is what a Muslim woman told Bureau Local (U.K.) when trying to explain her fear of the media.
Time’s up on news outlets that operate this way for profit, political influence, and the protection of the status quo. The good news (no pun intended) is that projects like Media 2070 (U.S.), BBC and Beyond (U.K.), and organizations like The Objective (U.S.) are filling the accountability vacuum and challenging the very industry that holds up “accountability” and “holding truth to power” as its most celebrated anthems.
Tomorrow’s news industry will change as a result of this accountability. It will challenge the often heard excuse that these communities are “hard to reach” and acknowledge they have been badly served and are reached and served best when ownership and representation is rooted in communities. Just look at the growing number of community newsrooms and initiatives that put equity and community power at the heart of their operations. In the U.K., see Greater Govanhill, The Ferret, The Bristol Cable, Black Ballad, and Gal Dem. In the U.S. see City Bureau, Outlier Media, Scalawag, Resolve Philly, Tiny News Collective and the Future of Local News Coalition’s prediction this year to dream bigger or lose out.
Tomorrow’s journalism will act on multiple fronts. It will challenge the power this industry has hoarded and weaponized for too long. It will share and shift that power (Check out this, this, and this). Crucially, it will support the building of new power in communities. Integral to this is for those of us inside to stop centering ourselves and trying to own the solutions, stop looking only within our small, privileged industry and to step aside, make space, and get behind others.
This past year, via The People’s Newsroom, we ran a pilot to support those who’ve been harmed by the media to reclaim it for their benefit. In doing so, we met tomorrow’s leaders.
We met Shakria Morka, who said, “As a Black, disabled woman, the experiences of neurotypical white men who have dominated traditional journalism are directly oppositional to mine.” She called for transformational inclusion and said, “Inclusion means truly valuing the contributions, perspectives and lived experience of marginalized people and allowing us to take up paid roles.” She said the work is not inclusive “if the nature of journalism itself does not change and if we fail to rip apart harmful stereotypes and consult communities.”
We met Shazia Ali, who said that opening a newspaper filled her with trepidation as she feared what Islamaphobic slur would then show up in physical hate. Yet when she discovered Amaliah, a Muslim women’s publication in the U.K., she said, “When I go on to Amaliah’s site, “I can breathe easier. That is what news belonging feels like.” She’s now a BBC journalism apprentice, and says she’s “doing it for all the communities that the news has failed.”
Shazia’s mantra is where the future lies. Tomorrow’s journalism belongs to those who’ve been excluded, harmed, and failed by the media. It belongs to the communities that most need its power. In their hands it can be reimagined and reclaimed as a true community service that enacts positive change.
We all know there is a crisis in journalism. There is a breakdown in the business model and a breakdown in trust, and those two things are not unrelated. That is down to who holds the power and who tells the stories. This is because, for the group of people running the industry, the system works just fine as it is. Yet it’s worth remembering that they actually represent a tiny proportion of the population. It’s impossible for them to reflect the true richness of society, but if we let them, they will preside over the death of journalism.
So, we’re not going to let them. We’re going to shift this power and support the next generation of journalists, editors, and owners to reclaim journalism for us all.
Megan Lucero is the founder of the Bureau Local and People’s Newsroom. Shirish Kulkarni is a journalist, researcher and community organizer.
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
James Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse