I am exceedingly excited about 2023 and the opportunity in front of the news and journalism sector. If there’s any sort of potential bright spot coming out of some of the current tech platform crises, it’s that news and journalism institutions can offer a counter message and cement themselves as reliable sources of community information and connection.
This moment will be quick and fleeting, as we already see other apps and platforms beginning to pop up, offering themselves as alternatives to what the giants of social media once were (are?). This sort of rapid evolution within our digital spaces will require news and journalism institutions to understand and figure out their own pathways to information distribution, community connection, and trust building with audiences. The ability to understand and build that product roadmap (even if it’s just a website to start) will be largely dependent on not only their markets and regions, but most importantly, who they seek to serve. This will require a constant assessing and figuring out of revenue opportunities that lend themselves to various product and multimedia strategies in sustainable and diversified ways.
All of this increasingly complicated audience, product, and revenue strategizing and mapping requires a sophistication and new way of structuring and designing internal organizations, while thinking through both short-term and long-term goals and realities. At the early stages of an organization’s growth or transformation, it may not make sense to hire a super senior full-time resource right away. It may be better to bring on a more mid-tier leader who can partner alongside a sophisticated consultant or firm that will help them grow and develop in their role, while also aiding in building systems, processes, and providing experienced thought partnership at a fraction of what a full-time salary at that senior level might have entailed.
The sustainable and thriving news and journalism organization is not going to reflect the org chart of a printing press shop. Full stop. Business, operation(s), tech, product, and multimedia talent will need to be core and integral partners and leaders to editors, journalists and reporters. They’ll need to be empowered, vs. practices like relegating a role like a “social media manager” to the bottom of a news organization’s org chart.
This sort of talent will provide a fresh and experienced set of perspectives and strategies, as well as a track record of success in other companies, industries, and sectors, that can be extremely applicable and relevant to the changes and needs of the news and journalism sector. They’ll understand what it takes to build and sustain an organization (and business operation) via some tried and true principles, some of which have existed for thousands of years.
Anna Nirmala is VP of portfolio success at the American Journalism Project.
I am exceedingly excited about 2023 and the opportunity in front of the news and journalism sector. If there’s any sort of potential bright spot coming out of some of the current tech platform crises, it’s that news and journalism institutions can offer a counter message and cement themselves as reliable sources of community information and connection.
This moment will be quick and fleeting, as we already see other apps and platforms beginning to pop up, offering themselves as alternatives to what the giants of social media once were (are?). This sort of rapid evolution within our digital spaces will require news and journalism institutions to understand and figure out their own pathways to information distribution, community connection, and trust building with audiences. The ability to understand and build that product roadmap (even if it’s just a website to start) will be largely dependent on not only their markets and regions, but most importantly, who they seek to serve. This will require a constant assessing and figuring out of revenue opportunities that lend themselves to various product and multimedia strategies in sustainable and diversified ways.
All of this increasingly complicated audience, product, and revenue strategizing and mapping requires a sophistication and new way of structuring and designing internal organizations, while thinking through both short-term and long-term goals and realities. At the early stages of an organization’s growth or transformation, it may not make sense to hire a super senior full-time resource right away. It may be better to bring on a more mid-tier leader who can partner alongside a sophisticated consultant or firm that will help them grow and develop in their role, while also aiding in building systems, processes, and providing experienced thought partnership at a fraction of what a full-time salary at that senior level might have entailed.
The sustainable and thriving news and journalism organization is not going to reflect the org chart of a printing press shop. Full stop. Business, operation(s), tech, product, and multimedia talent will need to be core and integral partners and leaders to editors, journalists and reporters. They’ll need to be empowered, vs. practices like relegating a role like a “social media manager” to the bottom of a news organization’s org chart.
This sort of talent will provide a fresh and experienced set of perspectives and strategies, as well as a track record of success in other companies, industries, and sectors, that can be extremely applicable and relevant to the changes and needs of the news and journalism sector. They’ll understand what it takes to build and sustain an organization (and business operation) via some tried and true principles, some of which have existed for thousands of years.
Anna Nirmala is VP of portfolio success at the American Journalism Project.
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting