Modern digital design has drained all sentiment and inventiveness from products we use on a daily basis. From streaming platforms and shopping apps to, of course, news websites, everything looks the same.
UX standardization is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s great to present something in a way people are familiar with, but how do we do that without falling into the performance bubble, rinsing and repeating what everyone else is doing? We designers can facilitate the process and visualize and understand possible paths. Working together with engineering, product, growth, audience, and the newsroom, we can aim for bold new bold ideas and experiences — but are we ready for that?
As a designer, I’d be excited to see the news industry bring back the uniqueness we used to see in printed newspapers — the content density, the grid (and how to break it in clever ways), the personality, the focus — without washing away the brand’s identity and how readers perceive it. In short, how can digital pay respect to a centuries-old industry that shapes culture, influences governments, and documents history?
I’d like to think 2023 is the year we can go back to when everything was new and unexplored, where we take risks and make choices that could reshape the way we experience news online.
Modern digital design has drained all sentiment and inventiveness from products we use on a daily basis. From streaming platforms and shopping apps to, of course, news websites, everything looks the same.
UX standardization is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s great to present something in a way people are familiar with, but how do we do that without falling into the performance bubble, rinsing and repeating what everyone else is doing? We designers can facilitate the process and visualize and understand possible paths. Working together with engineering, product, growth, audience, and the newsroom, we can aim for bold new bold ideas and experiences — but are we ready for that?
As a designer, I’d be excited to see the news industry bring back the uniqueness we used to see in printed newspapers — the content density, the grid (and how to break it in clever ways), the personality, the focus — without washing away the brand’s identity and how readers perceive it. In short, how can digital pay respect to a centuries-old industry that shapes culture, influences governments, and documents history?
I’d like to think 2023 is the year we can go back to when everything was new and unexplored, where we take risks and make choices that could reshape the way we experience news online.
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Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public