Sometime around 1995, we changed.
We changed because the Internet seemed to move from the unknown and unreachable to the possible. A prosumer activity to a consumer activity. It was open. It was available. And most who weren’t already there, wanted to be there for its promise. In 1995, amid my excitement over what could be digital, I was still reading two different newspapers over breakfast each morning and listening to two different public radio stations in two different parts of the house. While not efficient, the gaps and differences between the reporting taught me about opinion. About choice. About editorial decision-making. And about truth.
Sometime around 2007, we changed again. In 2007, the digital possible moved from our desktops to our hands. Everything was indeed possible, just as they said in 1995. While still thrilling to receive a handwritten letter or a telephone call, perhaps even more enchanting was an email. A ping straight into our everyday that did not obey the rhythms or etiquette of the postman, the workday, or dinnertime.
Meantime, sometime between then and now, people returned to craft. Amid some uncertainty out in the world, people returned to making. Retreating into handmade objects, slow processes, face-to-face friendships and pleasures, people demonstrated that while we can’t change the world through artisanal coffee, we can reinforce the human values that seemed unrequited through rectangular glass.
Sometime around 2016, we changed again. Or rather, we began a media evolution that would continue for years to come. Public blurred with private. Truth blurred with fiction. Celebrity blurred with identity. Purpose blurred with perception.
And sometime around 2017, we will change again. The new year will bring a different kind of retreat. Rather than retreating into making or craft, we will retreat into smaller and more nuanced connections. Into quality over quantity. Into the single story over collections of stories. Into the subtle over the general. Into the singular datapoint over big data. Into attention over distraction. 2017 will ring triumphs for the small and true, the richness of a single moment, and a celebration of what is, rather than what is not.
Liz Danzico is creative director for NPR and chair and cofounder of the graduate program in interaction design at the School of Visual Arts.
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
David Weigel A test for online speech
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us