I met a friend, David Cheruiyot, this fall on a conference trip in Denmark. During a walk across Aarhus, David remarked that the self-contained nature of American journalism often struck him as odd but funny. We mused how this quality in American journalism led it to assume that every American crisis is the world’s crisis. American journalism has tended to frame the problems of the metropole as everyone’s problems and successes as something to be lauded and copied by everyone else. On my flight home, it struck me that this quality in American journalism is also one steeped in the politics of empire and epitomizes the cunning of imperialist reason.
For someone interested in how the politics of empire shape journalism professions, this year has been both intellectually fascinating and personally distressing to watch unfold — from the way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was framed by the likes of CBS and ITV and the total silencing of Black and brown victims of the invasion, to how American and British media handled the death of the British monarch and tried (and failed) to come to terms with the violent and racist history of empire. Very few journalists could reckon with the feelings of those whose families experienced genocidal violence. Those that sought to remind the metropole of the brutality of the British empire were discursively punished and bullied. In these two examples, we saw journalists embrace America’s imperialistic unconscious (to paraphrase Julian Go) both in their focus on those victims that looked like those in the metropole (as was the case in Ukraine) and in ignoring the violently racist history of colonization. This is journalism’s engagement in the politics of empire at its finest.
But this should not be surprising because American journalism seems unable, or unwilling, to truthfully reckon with its colonial tendencies or its continued status as a settler-colony-institution par excellence. This land upon which we move around freely and for whose people journalism claims to be working is one in which a colonizing force landed and never really left. American journalism operates in the U.S. similar to how settler newspapers in British East Africa and British West Africa did. It covers the news to raise the concerns and issues important to settlers rather than those important to the native population. For example, before the ABC series Alaska Daily, when was the last time you heard about the continuing massive problem of missing indigenous women? Compare this loud silence to the wall-to-wall coverage of the Queen’s death or the pages and pages devoted to the “ex-royals” living in California.
With all of this in mind, my hope for journalism next year is that it takes its liberatory potential to heart — that it covers indigenous issues not because they are indigenous issues but because we are, at best, guests in a foreign land. We are guests who may often be unwanted and unwelcome but who now control, or benefit from, the colony and all its attendant powers and institutions. Instead of chastising Uju Anya or giving a platform to her bullies, maybe journalists can ask themselves what they can learn from the experiences of her family, or millions of others in the Global South.
Imperialism and its politics need to form the foundation of coverage next year. It needs to act as a connective tissue across columns and broadcasts when the disappearance of indigenous women even makes it to the news. If journalists ignore empire, then all they will continue to see are the shiny toys meant to distract while ignoring the plight of our unwilling hosts.
j. Siguru Wahutu is an assistant professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU.
I met a friend, David Cheruiyot, this fall on a conference trip in Denmark. During a walk across Aarhus, David remarked that the self-contained nature of American journalism often struck him as odd but funny. We mused how this quality in American journalism led it to assume that every American crisis is the world’s crisis. American journalism has tended to frame the problems of the metropole as everyone’s problems and successes as something to be lauded and copied by everyone else. On my flight home, it struck me that this quality in American journalism is also one steeped in the politics of empire and epitomizes the cunning of imperialist reason.
For someone interested in how the politics of empire shape journalism professions, this year has been both intellectually fascinating and personally distressing to watch unfold — from the way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was framed by the likes of CBS and ITV and the total silencing of Black and brown victims of the invasion, to how American and British media handled the death of the British monarch and tried (and failed) to come to terms with the violent and racist history of empire. Very few journalists could reckon with the feelings of those whose families experienced genocidal violence. Those that sought to remind the metropole of the brutality of the British empire were discursively punished and bullied. In these two examples, we saw journalists embrace America’s imperialistic unconscious (to paraphrase Julian Go) both in their focus on those victims that looked like those in the metropole (as was the case in Ukraine) and in ignoring the violently racist history of colonization. This is journalism’s engagement in the politics of empire at its finest.
But this should not be surprising because American journalism seems unable, or unwilling, to truthfully reckon with its colonial tendencies or its continued status as a settler-colony-institution par excellence. This land upon which we move around freely and for whose people journalism claims to be working is one in which a colonizing force landed and never really left. American journalism operates in the U.S. similar to how settler newspapers in British East Africa and British West Africa did. It covers the news to raise the concerns and issues important to settlers rather than those important to the native population. For example, before the ABC series Alaska Daily, when was the last time you heard about the continuing massive problem of missing indigenous women? Compare this loud silence to the wall-to-wall coverage of the Queen’s death or the pages and pages devoted to the “ex-royals” living in California.
With all of this in mind, my hope for journalism next year is that it takes its liberatory potential to heart — that it covers indigenous issues not because they are indigenous issues but because we are, at best, guests in a foreign land. We are guests who may often be unwanted and unwelcome but who now control, or benefit from, the colony and all its attendant powers and institutions. Instead of chastising Uju Anya or giving a platform to her bullies, maybe journalists can ask themselves what they can learn from the experiences of her family, or millions of others in the Global South.
Imperialism and its politics need to form the foundation of coverage next year. It needs to act as a connective tissue across columns and broadcasts when the disappearance of indigenous women even makes it to the news. If journalists ignore empire, then all they will continue to see are the shiny toys meant to distract while ignoring the plight of our unwilling hosts.
j. Siguru Wahutu is an assistant professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU.
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
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Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine