In 2023, more news organizations are going to realize they are in the business of impact, not of eyeballs and attention, leading to shifts in the way they plan their work and attract revenue.
I realized this as I looked back over my first year leading the Center for Public Integrity, and saw the impact that our investigative reporting has delivered. For example, the ACLU renewed its push for federal legislation after our series showed school policing was disproportionately criminalizing children of color. In Georgia, our reporting on the impact of consolidating polling places led to changes that may have affected the midterm elections.
The traditional model of news is a business of eyeballs and attention. Prior to the internet, the news industry monopolized both content creation and distribution. Advertisers were interested in reaching as many people as possible, thus news and advertising were the perfect union. As we all know, the internet broke up that marriage and wreaked chaos in the news industry.
Since then, the entire industry has been trying to reinvent itself. Some think advertising is still the way to go, others have doubled down on subscription revenue, and many more have embraced nonprofit models, powered by a combination of philanthropic and earned revenue. For the most part, though, the fundamental driver of these news business models is still audience reach.
At Public Integrity, our goal is delivering impact. When I ask who that impact serves, and who is prepared to support it, I realize Public Integrity is NOT in the news business. We’re in the business of making American capitalism more inclusive. We’re in the business of strengthening multiracial democracy. We’re in the business of equal opportunity for children. We are in the business of capacity building.
As a follow to my prediction last year on building business infrastructure and not business models, this year, many news leaders will realize they are no longer in the business of eyeballs and attention. Instead, more news organizations will position themselves as social-impact business, while adhering to journalistic values in the execution of their missions. This will lead to new ways of working and raising revenue:
Paul Cheung is the CEO of the Center for Public Integrity.
In 2023, more news organizations are going to realize they are in the business of impact, not of eyeballs and attention, leading to shifts in the way they plan their work and attract revenue.
I realized this as I looked back over my first year leading the Center for Public Integrity, and saw the impact that our investigative reporting has delivered. For example, the ACLU renewed its push for federal legislation after our series showed school policing was disproportionately criminalizing children of color. In Georgia, our reporting on the impact of consolidating polling places led to changes that may have affected the midterm elections.
The traditional model of news is a business of eyeballs and attention. Prior to the internet, the news industry monopolized both content creation and distribution. Advertisers were interested in reaching as many people as possible, thus news and advertising were the perfect union. As we all know, the internet broke up that marriage and wreaked chaos in the news industry.
Since then, the entire industry has been trying to reinvent itself. Some think advertising is still the way to go, others have doubled down on subscription revenue, and many more have embraced nonprofit models, powered by a combination of philanthropic and earned revenue. For the most part, though, the fundamental driver of these news business models is still audience reach.
At Public Integrity, our goal is delivering impact. When I ask who that impact serves, and who is prepared to support it, I realize Public Integrity is NOT in the news business. We’re in the business of making American capitalism more inclusive. We’re in the business of strengthening multiracial democracy. We’re in the business of equal opportunity for children. We are in the business of capacity building.
As a follow to my prediction last year on building business infrastructure and not business models, this year, many news leaders will realize they are no longer in the business of eyeballs and attention. Instead, more news organizations will position themselves as social-impact business, while adhering to journalistic values in the execution of their missions. This will lead to new ways of working and raising revenue:
Paul Cheung is the CEO of the Center for Public Integrity.
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Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
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Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
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A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
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Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
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Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
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Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
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Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
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Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
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Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
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Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
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Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
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Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
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Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
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Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
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Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
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Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
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Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
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Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
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Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
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Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
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