There is massive uncertainty on the future impact of artificial intelligence.
Among those who we can consider the ‘experts’ – the most qualified on the planet to judge – there are deep disagreements on the potential for general artificial intelligence, the evolution of work, whether AI is an existential threat to humanity, and almost every other aspect of the impact of AI.
Let us leave aside for now the full scope of the future relationship between humans and machines.
On the subject of work, I have frequently found myself bemused by the many people who appear to believe that machines will before long do all work, leaving nothing for humans to do other than hopefully bask in the leisure we have.
While it is possible that fewer people will be in gainful employment (which is not a given, more on that in another post), I don’t believe we will ever have a world of no human work, for many reasons.
What is ‘work’?
Our views on what work is clearly need to evolve for a changing world. Read more →
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/lego_people_cropped.jpg7001916Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2018-01-27 12:01:152023-04-26 23:09:44Why there will ALWAYS be work for humans
Last week I gave a keynote on The Future of Associations at the annual Board of Directors Retreat for one of the world’s largest professional associations, held in the delightful venue of Panama City.
Having been involved in the events, thought leadership initiatives and awards of a wide variety of associations over the years, I have long thought that there is massive untapped potential value in many associations’ member networks.
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/temple_SriLanka_cropped.jpg6861800Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2018-01-24 10:20:352018-01-24 10:28:23Engineering serendipity is the future of associations
I have been deeply interested in Zen since my late teens. When I moved to Japan in my late 20s, ultimately spending 3 ½ years there, the reasons included my fascination with Zen.
Soon after I arrived in Tokyo I found a Zen master, Nishijima-Sensei, who held weekly meditation sessions followed by lectures in English on Shobogenzo, the foundation text of Soto Zen.
Later I lived for a year in his Zen Dojo, commuting to my day job as a financial journalist, following the center’s principles of meditating twice a day and doing the daily chores that sustained the community, and taking the Soto Zen Buddhist precepts.
This time helped me resolve one of the issues I had grappled with since I had entered the workforce. Zen teaches us that the only thing that exists is the present. Yet if there is only the present, how and why should we work in the present to create the outcomes we desire in the future?
The answer is simple, though it took a long time for me to truly understand it. Read more →
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Zen_garden_CC_el_ave_cropped.jpg7801781Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2018-01-21 17:17:542018-01-21 17:17:54Zen and the Art of Creating the Future
Over the years I have created a lot of content – books, reports, visual frameworks and far more – that has been very widely seen. From all this undoubtedly the one piece that has been the most visible globally is my Newspaper Extinction Timeline launched in October 2010, that predicted for each country in which year newspapers in their then-current form would become “insignificant”.
Coverage in over 100 major publications from more than 30 countries helped to garner many, many millions of views, attract critics galore, and generate substantial debate. Read more →
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/car_crash_CC_Paul_Reynolds_cropped.jpg5601200Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-20 12:15:572017-12-20 23:59:17About getting predictions wrong as a futurist (and how to create the future you want)
Partly to respond to deep misunderstandings of the timeline, over the years I have many times provided deeper explanations of the timeline, including immediately after its launch. I have also long intended to create an updated timeline, adjusting the dates based on new developments since the timeline’s launch, however I have never managed to fit it in among my many projects.
However it is now the end of 2017, the year when I forecast newspapers would become insignificant in the US. It is time to review the timeline in detail, including why it was created, how accurate or inaccurate it was, and what the global news industry needs to be doing now.
The nature of the timeline
Most of the commentators and critics of the timeline seemed to have failed to read the explanatory notes included in page 2 of the original full timeline document.
“This schedule for newspaper extinction shows best estimates given current trends. The timeline is intended to highlight the diversity of global media markets and stimulate useful strategic conversations.
Newspapers in their current form becoming insignificant is not the same as the death of news-on-paper, which will continue in a variety of forms.
Ways that newspaper publishers of today will succeed in the transition beyond “newspapers in their current form” include transitioning to other channels, providing personalized news-on-paper, and tapping niche markets.”
Two key points here:
The timeline is about “newspapers in their current form”, in 2010 primarily meaning news-on-paper – news supplied on printed paper. It is NOT about news or news organizations, many of which have been successfully transitioning to delivering news in a multitude of formats other than paper.
Very importantly, it was intended to “stimulate useful strategic conversations”.
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I often say I do not believe in predictions. I am quoted in an Australian Financial Review article Futurist Ross Dawson: predictions can mislead saying:
Forecasts and predictions make Ross Dawson uncomfortable, but not for the reasons you think.
“A prediction can have negative value, by misleading people, by taking away all the uncertainties and the possibilities,” he says.
…
Rather than giving people the illusion of certainty, he believes the role of the futurist is to help people to think more effectively about the future.
“Almost all forecasts will turn out to be wrong. The future is unpredictable.”
The intent of the Newspaper Extinction Timeline
If that is how I feel about predictions, why did I make specific forecasts on the demise of news-on-paper?
The short answer is: to provoke strategic thought and action.
In 2010 I still saw enormous complacency among newspaper organizations and executives. There were a good number of news organizations that were responding in a concerted fashion to a changing world and shifting their resources to building value in new channels.
I think it is safe to say there were many more that were not taking sufficient action given the extent of the changes that were already underway, and are now regretting that they were so slow to shift their business models.
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline, by providing specific predictions, was intended to make executives think hard about the future of their industry and business, and hopefully to make them respond in ways that would create a more successful future for their organizations.
What I like about Dawson’s nudge is that it reminds us that the clock is ticking. We can’t work fast enough at the corporate level or the industry level to develop digital platforms that connect with readers and advertisers. We can’t work fast enough to build multi-media companies where print, online, mobile, iPad and others each play to their strengths and interact. Just as we were warned in the 1990s that classified advertising could disappear and we need to prepare for that, we need to be preparing today for an all-digital future — whether that comes in 2025, 2050, 2100, or some year beyond the reach of our great-grandchildren.
Here’s an interesting exercise for your management team: pick the date Dawson says your country’s newspapers will be “insignificant” and work backward. What would you need to do between today and that date to transform your business model and generate enough revenue to preserve today’s level of journalism at a sufficiently profitable level? We may all make similar choices, but my guess is the sense of urgency is more intense in the United States than India.
…
If a few dates assigned to something we’re already focused on contribute 1% additional urgency to our industry’s transformation from print to multi-media and the structure of our news ecology — with print still playing a part, even if “insignificant” — then we can thank Ross Dawson for his contribution.
I have been told about many instances in which the Newspaper Extinction Timeline has been used to help bring a sense of urgency to media boards and executives when the necessity of rapid change has not been yet recognized.
However this can cut both ways. I have been told that in one South African media conglomerate the Timeline was used to support complacency because the date given for Metro South Africa seemed very far away at 2037.
Factoring in new data
In the years following the release of the timeline I was often asked whether I had updated the timeline since its launch.
My thinking on the likely dates had certainly shifted from soon after the launch based on new data, however I never had time to do a comprehensive review of the entire timeline, and I didn’t want to make isolated changes.
However from quite soon after the Timeline’s launch two things became clear:
1. The earliest dates were too aggressive.
Seen from 2010, the forecasts of 2017 for the US, 2019 for UK and Ireland, and Canada and Norway in 2020 were certainly provocative and intended to be so. The prediction for the US is now demonstrably wrong. At his point we can fairly safely say that the forecasts for the other countries early on the list will be wrong.
However the pace of decline in news-on-paper in the countries next on the list – Finland, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Denmark – suggests that those dates might still prove not to be too early.
2. Many of the later dates were considerably too optimistic (for newspapers).
Many of the dynamics in highly developed markets affecting the news industry are rapidly flowing through to developing markets. Seven years ago sustained newspaper growth in China and India seemed inevitable for the foreseeable future. However newspaper advertising in China is already falling rapidly – reportedly down 40% last year alone – as mobile usage explodes and the outlook for India may not be as rosy as suggested by headline figures.
My keynote at Arab Media Forum in 2014 was widely reported for my comments that my forecasts for the extinction of newspapers in UAE and Saudi Arabia should be revised earlier from the timeline dates of 2028 ad 2034 respectively, given the extraordinary growth of social media and mobile news in the region in the previous few years.
On various visits to countries such as Russia, India, China, and Colombia for speaking engagements I saw clear evidence that the death of news-on-paper will likely come far earlier than I anticipated in the timeline.
Wrong on US
Given it’s 2017 it is time to review the timeline’s accuracy on the state of newspapers in the US, the first country on the list.
In short, I fully acknowledge that my prediction that news-on-paper would become “irrelevant” (defined as less than 2.5% of total advertising revenue) in the US in 2017 was definitely wrong, as I have been pointedly told. But what is the actual state of the industry today?
It is very difficult to get good data on the state of the newspaper industry in the US, not least since the Newspaper Association of America (now the News Media Alliance) in 2013 stopped publishing its previously excellent industry data after 26 consecutive quarters of revenue declines.
In addition many newspaper companies globally have been extremely opaque in their financial reports, making it very difficult to assess the state of their newspapers as distinct from their digital properties.
In particular the vast majority of “newspaper circulation” figures available include both print and digital editions so tell us next to nothing about the state of news-on-paper.
Early next year we intend to add pages to examine the state of news-on-paper in other countries, beginning with UK, Canada and Australia. Please contact us if you can point us to or provide any more recent data that gives an accurate view of the picture today.
Where news-on-paper will survive (longer)
There is no doubt that in many countries news-on-paper as we usually think about it is severely endangered or rapidly getting there.
However there are a number of domains in which news-on-paper may survive significantly longer than your traditional city newspaper.
Le Monde, El País, Nikkei, The Times of India, Folha de S.Paolo and a handful of other publications are reference points globally in their language domains, so are highly advantaged relative to other publications, however cannot attract the same global audience as English-language publications.
All of these publications have been very actively transitioning to digital publication and revenue models, most with substantial success. However their position as reference publications will enable them to continue to monetize print for considerably longer than other news publications that are not in the same position. The situation of the vast majority of newspapers is not comparable to these giants.
Weekend papers
Newspapers are consumed very differently on weekdays and weekends. On weekdays they are used primarily a source of daily news, a domain where computers and mobile devices are proving to be superior delivery platforms to paper.
However weekend newspapers are consumed in a more leisurely fashion, not while commuting or in an office, with timeliness not imperative, making paper a good delivery mechanism.
Many newspapers around the world have long offered weekend-only subscriptions, an increasing number are no longer publishing every week day. So far only a handful have shifted to weekend-only production, but the shift is likely to accelerate dramatically in coming years. The traditional daily newspaper will die in many cities. The remaining weekend editions will be more akin to a weekly magazine, more focused on commentary and lifestyle than news per se.
Free commuter papers
Since Metro was successfully launched in Stockholm in 1995 and subsequently in many other European cities the number of free newspapers for commuters has exploded globally as other news organizations followed suit, with some paid newspapers going free, such as London Evening Standard in 2009.
The economics of free newspapers continues to erode, not least with a large proportion of commuters preferring to use their mobiles for news and entertainment over picking up and discarding a newspaper. Over the last years many free papers, such as News Corp’s London Paper and mX, have closed. However free newspapers are likely to continue to exist for the foreseeable future, especially in developing economies.
Community newspapers
Small community newspapers that focus on local news and identities, usually on a weekly publication schedule, are highly challenged but in some cases still have a decent runway ahead. The news is not time-sensitive and the highly defined audiences are attractive to local advertisers. Many small community newspapers are closing, however some will survive longer than city newspapers.
Revising the timeline
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline has proven to be – at least partly – wrong. So should it be revised based on the new information that has emerged since its launch?
Our intention is to revise the timeline next year if we believe doing so will create value for the industry. If we proceed we will draw on far broader input than was used for the first edition, inviting readers of this publication to share insights and perspectives so we can better estimate the pace of erosion of news-on-paper.
Creating the future of news
What frustrated me the most in the response to the Newspaper Extinction Timeline was that most people missed the point entirely.
In the big picture it is not that important if news-on-paper effectively dies. What IS critically important is that we work to create a prosperous future of news and the news industry, using whatever media and channels are the best to deliver news, engage audiences, and generate sustaining revenue.
In a rapidly changing world in which we are literally shaping the future of humanity, I believe there is no more important industry in the world than news. Individually and collectively we need to be well-enough informed to make the decisions that will create a better world tomorrow.
I also believe that it is possible, though certainly not inevitable, that we can create a positive, prosperous future of news.
We have to believe that the ‘News-powered progress’ scenario which is characterized by high-quality news and strong industry prosperity is possible in order to create it. If we don’t believe it’s possible it will never happen.
However if we do believe that it is possible somehow, the necessary next step is to work out how best to do it, by navigating the possible paths from where we are today to a prosperous future of news.
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.png00Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-15 11:25:452019-03-11 12:53:24Review of the Newspaper Extinction Timeline: What We Got Wrong and the Future of News from Here
This page compiles some of the most recent available data on the state of news-on-paper in the U.S. Note that there are massive challenges to gaining an accurate current view of the state of news-on-paper.
The Newspaper Association of America (now renamed News Media Alliance) stopped providing detailed industry information in 2013.
Publicly listed news organizations have been largely very opaque in providing details on their print revenue and circulation.
Almost all so-called “newspaper circulation” figures available include both paper and digital formats. Most of the data below includes both paper and digital so does not provide real insight into the state of news-on-paper.
However the most important issue is NOT the decline of news-on-paper, but from the position we are in today how we can best create a positive future for the news industry over all channels.
More than a 1/3 of paid daily newspaper circulation has disappeared over 10 years
At the turn of the century, newspaper circulation in the United States rested at a relatively stable level of approximately 55 million copies a year. Nevertheless, ever since peaking in the late 1980s—hitting 62.82 million in 1987—the circulation of paid daily newspapers has consistently declined.
The pace of decline accelerated in 2004 (54.63 million), but not precipitously, resulting in a drop of more than 36% by 2016 (34.66 million). According to the last ten years of recorded data (2006-2016) supplied in the chart above, paid daily newspaper circulation sunk 34%.
To take a closer look at the yearly circulation numbers, statista provides an interactive version of the chart above as well as multiple options for downloading the information.
2016 circulation for both Weekday and Sunday editions has plunged to the lowest figures since 1945
The Pew Research Center offers deeper insight into the decline of newspapers in the United States, providing separate circulation data for Weekday and Sunday daily newspapers. The center’s analysis shows that in 2016 both hit their lowest levels since 1945, with circulation figures of 35 million and 38 million respectively.
Advertising revenue dropped nearly two-thirds between 2005 and 2016, while circulation revenue rose slightly
[NOTE: Figures include both print and digital]
Data sources:News Media Alliance, formerly Newspaper Association of America, (through 2012); Pew Research Center analysis of year-end SEC filings of publicly traded newspaper companies (2013-2016). Chart source:Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center also analyzed advertising and circulation revenue for U.S. newspapers over a 60-year period starting in 1956. Although circulation earnings have gradually increased, total advertising revenue fell significantly between 2005 and 2016. During these 11 years, total advertising revenue for the industry plummeted by nearly two-thirds, decreasing from $49 billion to $18 billion. The bulk of advertising revenue still comes from print, compromising approximately 80% in 2011 and dropping to close to 70% in 2016.
From 2013 to 2017, the number of people who read print newspapers decreased by almost one-fifth. As the medium dropped out of favor, social media as a news source enjoyed a steady climb, with consumption growing by about 6% each year.
Each year since 2012, the Reuters Institute in partnership with the University of Oxford has released a digital news report offering insights into the transition to online news and its effect on the media landscape. Although the first report covered just five countries, the latest included survey data from 70,000 participants across 36 countries.
For people wanting to delve deeper and compare data between and within countries, we strongly recommend reading the latest report and using the interactive feature to create your own charts.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are uniquely positioned to monetize print but its role is rapidly declining
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are distinct from other newspapers in the U.S. in that they are truly national and in fact arguably global “newspapers of record”. All three have made a concerted and successful shift to digital subscriptions and advertising. However, their role means that the role of print in their business models continues to be solid.
“The print product is a mature platform. It is, as you say, an economically important platform to us. It’s possible that platform will plateau. I think it’s more likely that the platform will eventually go away. It’ll go away because the economics will no longer make sense to us or our customers.”
Weekly community newspapers are severely challenged but are likely to have further life
There remain many newspapers across the US, primarily weekly, with small circulations but advertising revenues that are sometimes not eroding as fast as larger newspapers due to their highly geographically focused audiences and unique content.
An excellent report from Columbia Journalism Review’s Tow Center on Small-market newspapers in the digital age provides strong insights into the state of the sector and some of the ways community newspapers are successful responding to change.
Since September 2005, employment in the U.S. newspaper industry has dropped by more than half
U.S. Newspaper employment: January 1990: 455,000 (62% decline since this date) January 2010: 260,800 (33% decline since this date) September 2016: 173,700
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also provides the above chart in an interactive format. Users can explore the data further by hovering their cursors over the lines representing the different information industries or by clicking on the “Chart Data” tab to view it in a table format.
NOTE: “Newspaper employment” includes staff working on both print and digital editions, a fraction of these figures work
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.png00Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-15 09:44:112019-03-11 12:58:40Decline of News-on-paper: United States
Regarding Bitcoin:
When I was in financial markets I learned about the very plausible “perverse market theory” – the market acts to hurt the most people the most – draws the suckers in, then wipes them out, gives them hope, then tramples on them.
I was later asked for more information about perverse market theory, and after digging around I have drawn a blank. The term “perverse market” is usually used to refer to unintended or unanticipated market responses, but that is a different meaning from the one I referred to here.
Perhaps my memory fails me on the concept’s name (let me know if you can instruct me on this!), but the idea really struck me when I heard about it in my early career working in financial markets.
Do markets want to hurt people?
The idea of perverse market theory essentially anthropomorphizes the markets, attributing it intent, not dissimilarly to how Kevin Kelly describes directional behaviors in the development of technology in his book What Technology Wants. Read more →
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.png00Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-14 21:33:012022-07-24 00:17:34Perverse market theory and the perversion of crypto-currencies
The higher the degree of uncertainty, the greater the value of using scenarios.
One of the deepest uncertainties today is the future shape of the news industry, which certainly faces deep challenges from both producer and consumer perspectives.
However it is feasible that the news industry can find its way to both strength both financially and in terms of social contribution.
This publication is framed around how we can create a positive future for news. Generating some simple scenarios on different possible high-level outcomes for the industry can help industry participants to consider both what they believe is most likely, and what they believe is possible.
Two of the key uncertainties in the future of news are:
The quality of news; and
The prosperity of the news industry.
Mapping these two variables gives us four quadrants as shown below.
Exploring these high-level scenarios allows us to examine our beliefs on what is likely or possible in the future of news. I will lay out what I see as possible across these quadrants.
You may have different opinions; in fact the true value of these scenarios is in helping to consider what you see is likely or possible in the future of news.
Distributed news
High news quality | Low industry prosperity
It is certainly plausible that we move to a world in which individuals have access to high-quality news but news organizations do not prosper. This would almost certainly be significantly based on crowdsourcing and the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Crowdsourcing is not just user-generated content. In a workshop on Crowdsourcing for Media I ran in New York I identified 12 applications of crowdsourcing to news, including investigation, data gathering, fact checking, copyediting, and metadata tagging. It is also important to note that crowdsourcing is not always unpaid, as many in the media seem to think. It is participation by many people, sometimes experts, to achieve superior or more efficient results.
Blockchain could prove to be an excellent platform for getting and rewarding participation. The startup Civil provides an intriguing example of how this may work, particularly in supporting talented individual journalists.
AI is of course already being used to support journalists in structured reporting such as on financial reports and sports results. While there is significant uncertainty how fast this will progress, it is highly feasible that experienced journalists supported by AI will be able to focus their capabilities on the domains where deep investigation and insights are needed.
There are a variety of other ways this scenario could come to pass, including technological and structural mechanisms that could see efficient news delivery.
Agenda-driven news
Low news quality | High industry prosperity
On the face of it this scenario is highly unlikely, potentially implausible. Surely if the news industry is prosperous it will have sufficient resources to generate high-quality news?
This is certainly likely. However, there is the possibility that news organizations become primarily driven by specific political or social agendas, thus leading to an impoverished news landscape. It appears this trend is already developing. This could be accentuated if audiences continue to be polarized by political stance, requiring news organizations to make choices on their coverage.
Another situation that could lead to this scenario is that the companies that are reaping the most rewards from the news landscape are failing to invest in quality news, even though that could support their profitability.
News implosion
Low quality news | Low industry prosperity
This is the great fear of the last decade and more, that the rapid erosion of financial resources at news organizations leads to decreasing news quality and in turn to reducing audiences and revenue in a particularly vicious cycle. It is easy to point to the demise of many news organizations and deteriorating quality at many others as headcounts and budgets have been sliced.
This is indeed a plausible scenario, which many people seem to be taking almost as a given. However, any solid futures methodology examines the responses to trends. Responses to this scenario developing include the concerted efforts by many to drive higher quality news through technological solutions, philanthropy, crowdfunding, and other approaches.
Increasing industry prosperity could come on the other side of a dark valley in which many existing structures for news creation are lost, allowing a fresh start for new and more contemporary business models unencumbered by legacy cost structures and audience positioning.
News-powered progress
High quality news | High industry prosperity
In this world a virtuous cycle of high-quality news feeds industry prosperity and the ability to improve the news landscape to one that is substantially better than we have ever had before. Hopefully, but not necessarily, this would help create a better-informed, more proactive society that shapes a more positive future for humanity in fraught times.
This would likely to be supported by new technologies, broader distribution, high audience engagement, and broad participation in news creation to support the work of news professionals.
However there are potentially many paths and scenarios, all quite different in their detail, that could lead to this quadrant being realized.
Starting with the belief that a positive future of news is possible
The intent of my work on creating the future of news is to explore the potential paths to a world of higher quality news and higher industry prosperity. This will undoubtedly be better than one in which the industry doesn’t prosper, not least in supporting the highest possible quality of news.
The first step to creating a positive future of news is to believe it is possible. It cannot be done without that belief. That doesn’t mean that it will be inevitable or even that it will be easy, simply that it is conceivable.
From that belief we can explore how we might get there, and as an industry and society take the actions most likely to create it.
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.png00Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-14 11:59:442020-06-18 03:49:35Four Scenarios to Guide Pathways to a Prosperous Future for the News Industry
The Trust Project, comprised of a consortium of news organizations and tech platforms, have a plan to win back audiences by sharing more information behind the creation of news stories online.
Staging a comeback
Led and created by Sally Lehrman, the senior director of journalism ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, The Trust Project began growing roots in 2015 and officially launched in November 2017.
First on the agenda was to determine what consumers value in news and what makes them trust it.
Over two years, researchers conducted dozens of interviews across Europe and the United States to get the information they wanted. Then with collaborators from more than 75 new organizations, the initiative devised a set of digital standards meant to increase accountability and transparency.
Best Practices: What are your standards? Who funds the news outlet? What is the outlet’s mission? Plus commitments to ethics, diverse voices, accuracy, making corrections and other standards.
Author/Reporter Expertise: Who made this? Details about the journalist, including their expertise and other stories they have worked on.
Type of Work: What is this? Labels to distinguish opinion, analysis and advertiser (or sponsored) content from news reports.
Citations and References: For investigative or in-depth stories, access to the sources behind the facts and assertions.
Methods: Also for in-depth stories, information about why reporters chose to pursue a story and how they went about the process.
Locally Sourced? Lets you know when the story has local origin or expertise. Was the reporting done on the scene, with deep knowledge about the local situation or community?
Diverse Voices: A newsroom’s efforts and commitment to bringing in diverse perspectives. Readers noticed when certain voices, ethnicities, or political persuasions were missing.
Actionable Feedback: A newsroom’s efforts to engage the public’s help in setting coverage priorities, contributing to the reporting process, ensuring accuracy and other areas. Readers want to participate and provide feedback that might alter or expand a story.
To see an early example of the Trust Indicators applied to a news story, view this mockup.
Notably, The Trust Project’s scope extends beyond online news sites. Through partnerships with tech giants like Facebook and Google, the goal is to send such platforms machine-readable signals they can incorporate into what articles they display and how.
The following video shows how Facebook plans to display the indicators on articles in its News Feed:
Will it work?
The Trust Project’s goal to restore confidence in the news media, while cutting through misinformation and fake news, is commendable. Pairing abysmal trust scores with publishers’ rocky transition to digital (if they have survived long enough to get that far), many online news outlets are sitting in precarious positions. Implementing strategies that could both bring them more traffic and rebuild their public credibility would be like killing two very threatening birds with one stone.
However, at this point incorporating the eight core indicators may translate into little more than a well-meaning gesture.
According to Laura Hazard Owen of Nieman Lab, the first publishers that will display the Trust Indicators alongside its content will include:
From the US: The Washington Post, Mic, and The Independent Journal Review
From the UK: The Economist and Trinity Mirror (national papers include Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People, and Daily Record)
From Canada: The Globe and Mail
From Germany: The German Press Agency dpa
From Italy: La Repubblica and La Stampa
The leanings of the majority of the above publications are left or center-left, excluding The Independent Journal Review, The Economist, and German Press Agency.
To complicate matters further, in countries such as the US and UK, which The 2017 Digital News Report shows have both polarized political and media climates, consumers are more likely to trust news sources that correspond to their own political leanings. This is true even though consumers in both countries show low trust levels in news outlets overall.
It is then questionable whether adding more context behind the creation of a Washington Post article would make it appear more credible to a right-wing conservative. Nevertheless, perhaps the widespread adoption of the Trust Indicators across diverse online publications could make audiences with different political views more open to reading articles from publishers they would normally avoid.
Uncertain future for tech partnerships
Tech giants Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Bing are already onboard with The Trust Project. In an article in The Atlantic published in May, Lehrman said:
“We’re already working with these four companies, all of which have said they want to use our indicators to prioritize honest, well-reported news over fakery and falsehood.”
How these collaborations will affect search engine results and social news feeds is not yet clear. Again, Owen notes that there have been no public promises from the platforms regarding whether their algorithms will give preference to publishers using the Trust Indicators.
As the small group of first wave of publishers roll them out, favoring The Trust Project collaborators could also be criticized as an unfair advantage. Small and independent publishers won’t be given the opportunity to join in the foreseeable future, which could significantly harm traffic flow from social media and search engines. However, this outcome rests on the assumption that technology platforms will, in fact, give preference to the Trust Indicators.
In the end, what’s most important about the project is the intent not only to create a standardized method to assess trustworthiness, but that this will eventually help raise the quality of online journalism overall.
Restoring public confidence in the media will be no simple task that one initiative will likely be able to tackle on its own. As The Trust Project launches and new reports and statistics on poor trust levels continue to emerge, the global media certainly has its work cut out for itself. It’s time, more than ever, to keenly monitor the impact of such strategies and keep dialogue open on how they can be improved, refined, and built upon.
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.png00Jenna Owsianikhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngJenna Owsianik2017-12-13 02:53:062019-03-11 12:56:09Can The Trust Project's Plan to Win Back Audiences Work?
The Commonwealth Bank Jobs and Skills of the Future Report I wrote recently dug into how work and jobs are changing and what skills will be required. These shifts in work mean it is crystal clear that education must also change.
Below is an excerpt from the report giving a snapshot of some of the shifts needed in education:
Education of the Future
Looking further into the future of education, we may see a radical restructuring of how we learn, not just in schools and universities, but through our entire life. Classrooms will continue to exist, enhanced through the use of a wide range of new tools, technologies and methodologies. Education will also become an ongoing part of everyone’s lives, and embedded into our employment, helping us improve our skills and capabilities while we work. Read more →
https://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/laptop-teacher_cropped.jpg5541268Ross Dawsonhttps://rossdawson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/rdawson_1500x500_rgb-300x100.pngRoss Dawson2017-12-06 09:49:452017-12-06 09:49:456 characteristics of education of the future and how credentials will change
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Why there will ALWAYS be work for humans
By Ross DawsonThere is massive uncertainty on the future impact of artificial intelligence.
Among those who we can consider the ‘experts’ – the most qualified on the planet to judge – there are deep disagreements on the potential for general artificial intelligence, the evolution of work, whether AI is an existential threat to humanity, and almost every other aspect of the impact of AI.
Let us leave aside for now the full scope of the future relationship between humans and machines.
On the subject of work, I have frequently found myself bemused by the many people who appear to believe that machines will before long do all work, leaving nothing for humans to do other than hopefully bask in the leisure we have.
While it is possible that fewer people will be in gainful employment (which is not a given, more on that in another post), I don’t believe we will ever have a world of no human work, for many reasons.
What is ‘work’?
Our views on what work is clearly need to evolve for a changing world.
Read more →
Engineering serendipity is the future of associations
By Ross DawsonLast week I gave a keynote on The Future of Associations at the annual Board of Directors Retreat for one of the world’s largest professional associations, held in the delightful venue of Panama City.
Having been involved in the events, thought leadership initiatives and awards of a wide variety of associations over the years, I have long thought that there is massive untapped potential value in many associations’ member networks.
The disruption of associations
Over the last 5-10 years many associations have been challenged by a confluence of powerful forces undermining their established positions.
Read more →
Zen and the Art of Creating the Future
By Ross DawsonI have been deeply interested in Zen since my late teens. When I moved to Japan in my late 20s, ultimately spending 3 ½ years there, the reasons included my fascination with Zen.
Soon after I arrived in Tokyo I found a Zen master, Nishijima-Sensei, who held weekly meditation sessions followed by lectures in English on Shobogenzo, the foundation text of Soto Zen.
Later I lived for a year in his Zen Dojo, commuting to my day job as a financial journalist, following the center’s principles of meditating twice a day and doing the daily chores that sustained the community, and taking the Soto Zen Buddhist precepts.
This time helped me resolve one of the issues I had grappled with since I had entered the workforce. Zen teaches us that the only thing that exists is the present. Yet if there is only the present, how and why should we work in the present to create the outcomes we desire in the future?
The answer is simple, though it took a long time for me to truly understand it.
Read more →
About getting predictions wrong as a futurist (and how to create the future you want)
By Ross DawsonOver the years I have created a lot of content – books, reports, visual frameworks and far more – that has been very widely seen. From all this undoubtedly the one piece that has been the most visible globally is my Newspaper Extinction Timeline launched in October 2010, that predicted for each country in which year newspapers in their then-current form would become “insignificant”.
Coverage in over 100 major publications from more than 30 countries helped to garner many, many millions of views, attract critics galore, and generate substantial debate.
Read more →
Review of the Newspaper Extinction Timeline: What We Got Wrong and the Future of News from Here
By Ross DawsonIn October 2010 I launched the now-infamous Newspaper Extinction Timeline, shown below.
It launched an immediate and enduring conversation, with the timeline discussed in newspapers and publications in over 30 countries in the first week after its launch. Over the years it has attracted some support, plenty of criticism, and hundreds of citations, including from senior figures such as Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, Central Bank of Ireland Deputy Governor Sharon Donnery, and Havas Global Managing Director Dominique Delport.
Partly to respond to deep misunderstandings of the timeline, over the years I have many times provided deeper explanations of the timeline, including immediately after its launch. I have also long intended to create an updated timeline, adjusting the dates based on new developments since the timeline’s launch, however I have never managed to fit it in among my many projects.
However it is now the end of 2017, the year when I forecast newspapers would become insignificant in the US. It is time to review the timeline in detail, including why it was created, how accurate or inaccurate it was, and what the global news industry needs to be doing now.
The nature of the timeline
Most of the commentators and critics of the timeline seemed to have failed to read the explanatory notes included in page 2 of the original full timeline document.
Two key points here:
In my opening keynote on Creating the Future of News at International News Media Association World Congress 2015 in New York I provided further context on the extinction timeline, as well as addressing the far more important issue of how we can create a prosperous future for news.
On predictions
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I often say I do not believe in predictions. I am quoted in an Australian Financial Review article Futurist Ross Dawson: predictions can mislead saying:
I have also very clearly given my opinion of predictions:
The intent of the Newspaper Extinction Timeline
If that is how I feel about predictions, why did I make specific forecasts on the demise of news-on-paper?
The short answer is: to provoke strategic thought and action.
In 2010 I still saw enormous complacency among newspaper organizations and executives. There were a good number of news organizations that were responding in a concerted fashion to a changing world and shifting their resources to building value in new channels.
I think it is safe to say there were many more that were not taking sufficient action given the extent of the changes that were already underway, and are now regretting that they were so slow to shift their business models.
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline, by providing specific predictions, was intended to make executives think hard about the future of their industry and business, and hopefully to make them respond in ways that would create a more successful future for their organizations.
Earl Wilkinson, Executive Director and CEO of the International News Media Association (INMA), understood that perfectly, writing in a blog post (since deleted but quoted on my blog and in The Guardian)
I have been told about many instances in which the Newspaper Extinction Timeline has been used to help bring a sense of urgency to media boards and executives when the necessity of rapid change has not been yet recognized.
However this can cut both ways. I have been told that in one South African media conglomerate the Timeline was used to support complacency because the date given for Metro South Africa seemed very far away at 2037.
Factoring in new data
In the years following the release of the timeline I was often asked whether I had updated the timeline since its launch.
My thinking on the likely dates had certainly shifted from soon after the launch based on new data, however I never had time to do a comprehensive review of the entire timeline, and I didn’t want to make isolated changes.
However from quite soon after the Timeline’s launch two things became clear:
1. The earliest dates were too aggressive.
Seen from 2010, the forecasts of 2017 for the US, 2019 for UK and Ireland, and Canada and Norway in 2020 were certainly provocative and intended to be so. The prediction for the US is now demonstrably wrong. At his point we can fairly safely say that the forecasts for the other countries early on the list will be wrong.
However the pace of decline in news-on-paper in the countries next on the list – Finland, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Denmark – suggests that those dates might still prove not to be too early.
2. Many of the later dates were considerably too optimistic (for newspapers).
Many of the dynamics in highly developed markets affecting the news industry are rapidly flowing through to developing markets. Seven years ago sustained newspaper growth in China and India seemed inevitable for the foreseeable future. However newspaper advertising in China is already falling rapidly – reportedly down 40% last year alone – as mobile usage explodes and the outlook for India may not be as rosy as suggested by headline figures.
My keynote at Arab Media Forum in 2014 was widely reported for my comments that my forecasts for the extinction of newspapers in UAE and Saudi Arabia should be revised earlier from the timeline dates of 2028 ad 2034 respectively, given the extraordinary growth of social media and mobile news in the region in the previous few years.
On various visits to countries such as Russia, India, China, and Colombia for speaking engagements I saw clear evidence that the death of news-on-paper will likely come far earlier than I anticipated in the timeline.
Wrong on US
Given it’s 2017 it is time to review the timeline’s accuracy on the state of newspapers in the US, the first country on the list.
In short, I fully acknowledge that my prediction that news-on-paper would become “irrelevant” (defined as less than 2.5% of total advertising revenue) in the US in 2017 was definitely wrong, as I have been pointedly told. But what is the actual state of the industry today?
It is very difficult to get good data on the state of the newspaper industry in the US, not least since the Newspaper Association of America (now the News Media Alliance) in 2013 stopped publishing its previously excellent industry data after 26 consecutive quarters of revenue declines.
In addition many newspaper companies globally have been extremely opaque in their financial reports, making it very difficult to assess the state of their newspapers as distinct from their digital properties.
In particular the vast majority of “newspaper circulation” figures available include both print and digital editions so tell us next to nothing about the state of news-on-paper.
See our Decline of News-on-paper: United States data page, where we have compiled the most relevant data we could source.
Early next year we intend to add pages to examine the state of news-on-paper in other countries, beginning with UK, Canada and Australia. Please contact us if you can point us to or provide any more recent data that gives an accurate view of the picture today.
Where news-on-paper will survive (longer)
There is no doubt that in many countries news-on-paper as we usually think about it is severely endangered or rapidly getting there.
However there are a number of domains in which news-on-paper may survive significantly longer than your traditional city newspaper.
Global “newspapers of record”
There are a handful of newspapers that garner global audiences as they are considered to be a reference to news in politics or business. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times and The Economist (if you agree with its self-description as a newspaper) all fit this category.
Le Monde, El País, Nikkei, The Times of India, Folha de S.Paolo and a handful of other publications are reference points globally in their language domains, so are highly advantaged relative to other publications, however cannot attract the same global audience as English-language publications.
All of these publications have been very actively transitioning to digital publication and revenue models, most with substantial success. However their position as reference publications will enable them to continue to monetize print for considerably longer than other news publications that are not in the same position. The situation of the vast majority of newspapers is not comparable to these giants.
Weekend papers
Newspapers are consumed very differently on weekdays and weekends. On weekdays they are used primarily a source of daily news, a domain where computers and mobile devices are proving to be superior delivery platforms to paper.
However weekend newspapers are consumed in a more leisurely fashion, not while commuting or in an office, with timeliness not imperative, making paper a good delivery mechanism.
Many newspapers around the world have long offered weekend-only subscriptions, an increasing number are no longer publishing every week day. So far only a handful have shifted to weekend-only production, but the shift is likely to accelerate dramatically in coming years. The traditional daily newspaper will die in many cities. The remaining weekend editions will be more akin to a weekly magazine, more focused on commentary and lifestyle than news per se.
Free commuter papers
Since Metro was successfully launched in Stockholm in 1995 and subsequently in many other European cities the number of free newspapers for commuters has exploded globally as other news organizations followed suit, with some paid newspapers going free, such as London Evening Standard in 2009.
The economics of free newspapers continues to erode, not least with a large proportion of commuters preferring to use their mobiles for news and entertainment over picking up and discarding a newspaper. Over the last years many free papers, such as News Corp’s London Paper and mX, have closed. However free newspapers are likely to continue to exist for the foreseeable future, especially in developing economies.
Community newspapers
Small community newspapers that focus on local news and identities, usually on a weekly publication schedule, are highly challenged but in some cases still have a decent runway ahead. The news is not time-sensitive and the highly defined audiences are attractive to local advertisers. Many small community newspapers are closing, however some will survive longer than city newspapers.
Revising the timeline
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline has proven to be – at least partly – wrong. So should it be revised based on the new information that has emerged since its launch?
Our intention is to revise the timeline next year if we believe doing so will create value for the industry. If we proceed we will draw on far broader input than was used for the first edition, inviting readers of this publication to share insights and perspectives so we can better estimate the pace of erosion of news-on-paper.
Creating the future of news
What frustrated me the most in the response to the Newspaper Extinction Timeline was that most people missed the point entirely.
In the big picture it is not that important if news-on-paper effectively dies. What IS critically important is that we work to create a prosperous future of news and the news industry, using whatever media and channels are the best to deliver news, engage audiences, and generate sustaining revenue.
In a rapidly changing world in which we are literally shaping the future of humanity, I believe there is no more important industry in the world than news. Individually and collectively we need to be well-enough informed to make the decisions that will create a better world tomorrow.
I also believe that it is possible, though certainly not inevitable, that we can create a positive, prosperous future of news.
In Four Scenarios to Guide Pathways to a Prosperous Future of the News Industry I describe alternative pathways for the future of news, as a tool for understanding our own beliefs about what is and isn’t possible.
We have to believe that the ‘News-powered progress’ scenario which is characterized by high-quality news and strong industry prosperity is possible in order to create it. If we don’t believe it’s possible it will never happen.
However if we do believe that it is possible somehow, the necessary next step is to work out how best to do it, by navigating the possible paths from where we are today to a prosperous future of news.
Decline of News-on-paper: United States
By Ross DawsonMapping the decline of news-on-paper
[Latest update: December 15, 2017]
The Newspaper Extinction Timeline, released in 2010, predicted that news-on-paper would become “insignificant” in the U.S. Read the Review of the Newspaper Extinction Timelinefor full context.
This page compiles some of the most recent available data on the state of news-on-paper in the U.S. Note that there are massive challenges to gaining an accurate current view of the state of news-on-paper.
However the most important issue is NOT the decline of news-on-paper, but from the position we are in today how we can best create a positive future for the news industry over all channels.
More than a 1/3 of paid daily newspaper circulation has disappeared over 10 years
At the turn of the century, newspaper circulation in the United States rested at a relatively stable level of approximately 55 million copies a year. Nevertheless, ever since peaking in the late 1980s—hitting 62.82 million in 1987—the circulation of paid daily newspapers has consistently declined.
[NOTE: Figures include both print and digital]
Data sources: Editor & Publisher; Alliance for Audited Media; Pew Research Center Chart source: statista
The pace of decline accelerated in 2004 (54.63 million), but not precipitously, resulting in a drop of more than 36% by 2016 (34.66 million). According to the last ten years of recorded data (2006-2016) supplied in the chart above, paid daily newspaper circulation sunk 34%.
To take a closer look at the yearly circulation numbers, statista provides an interactive version of the chart above as well as multiple options for downloading the information.
2016 circulation for both Weekday and Sunday editions has plunged to the lowest figures since 1945
[NOTE: Figures include both print and digital]
Data sources: Editor & Publisher (through 2014); estimation based on Pew Research Centeranalysis of Alliance for Audited Media data (2015-2016). Chart source: Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center offers deeper insight into the decline of newspapers in the United States, providing separate circulation data for Weekday and Sunday daily newspapers. The center’s analysis shows that in 2016 both hit their lowest levels since 1945, with circulation figures of 35 million and 38 million respectively.
Advertising revenue dropped nearly two-thirds between 2005 and 2016, while circulation revenue rose slightly
[NOTE: Figures include both print and digital]
Data sources: News Media Alliance, formerly Newspaper Association of America, (through 2012); Pew Research Center analysis of year-end SEC filings of publicly traded newspaper companies (2013-2016). Chart source: Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center also analyzed advertising and circulation revenue for U.S. newspapers over a 60-year period starting in 1956. Although circulation earnings have gradually increased, total advertising revenue fell significantly between 2005 and 2016. During these 11 years, total advertising revenue for the industry plummeted by nearly two-thirds, decreasing from $49 billion to $18 billion. The bulk of advertising revenue still comes from print, compromising approximately 80% in 2011 and dropping to close to 70% in 2016.
We recommend the valuable Pew Reseach Center website on Journalism & Media, which is compiled from a variety of industry resources.
Print became the least popular news source in 2014, continuing to fall through 2017 down to 22% weekly consumption
Data and chart source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017
From 2013 to 2017, the number of people who read print newspapers decreased by almost one-fifth. As the medium dropped out of favor, social media as a news source enjoyed a steady climb, with consumption growing by about 6% each year.
Each year since 2012, the Reuters Institute in partnership with the University of Oxford has released a digital news report offering insights into the transition to online news and its effect on the media landscape. Although the first report covered just five countries, the latest included survey data from 70,000 participants across 36 countries.
For people wanting to delve deeper and compare data between and within countries, we strongly recommend reading the latest report and using the interactive feature to create your own charts.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are uniquely positioned to monetize print but its role is rapidly declining
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal are distinct from other newspapers in the U.S. in that they are truly national and in fact arguably global “newspapers of record”. All three have made a concerted and successful shift to digital subscriptions and advertising. However, their role means that the role of print in their business models continues to be solid.
These uniquely successful news organizations recognize that they may not continue indefinitely on print. New York Times’ CEO Mark Thompson says in an interesting interview in Nieman Lab on when to stop the presses forever:
“The print product is a mature platform. It is, as you say, an economically important platform to us. It’s possible that platform will plateau. I think it’s more likely that the platform will eventually go away. It’ll go away because the economics will no longer make sense to us or our customers.”
Weekly community newspapers are severely challenged but are likely to have further life
There remain many newspapers across the US, primarily weekly, with small circulations but advertising revenues that are sometimes not eroding as fast as larger newspapers due to their highly geographically focused audiences and unique content.
Data source: Editor & Publisher, American Press Institute, Columbia Journalism Review
An excellent report from Columbia Journalism Review’s Tow Center on Small-market newspapers in the digital age provides strong insights into the state of the sector and some of the ways community newspapers are successful responding to change.
Since September 2005, employment in the U.S. newspaper industry has dropped by more than half
Note: Shaded areas represent recession, as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Data and chart source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Newspaper employment:
January 1990: 455,000 (62% decline since this date)
January 2010: 260,800 (33% decline since this date)
September 2016: 173,700
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also provides the above chart in an interactive format. Users can explore the data further by hovering their cursors over the lines representing the different information industries or by clicking on the “Chart Data” tab to view it in a table format.
NOTE: “Newspaper employment” includes staff working on both print and digital editions, a fraction of these figures work
Perverse market theory and the perversion of crypto-currencies
By Ross DawsonI recently tweeted:
I was later asked for more information about perverse market theory, and after digging around I have drawn a blank. The term “perverse market” is usually used to refer to unintended or unanticipated market responses, but that is a different meaning from the one I referred to here.
Perhaps my memory fails me on the concept’s name (let me know if you can instruct me on this!), but the idea really struck me when I heard about it in my early career working in financial markets.
Do markets want to hurt people?
The idea of perverse market theory essentially anthropomorphizes the markets, attributing it intent, not dissimilarly to how Kevin Kelly describes directional behaviors in the development of technology in his book What Technology Wants.
Read more →
Four Scenarios to Guide Pathways to a Prosperous Future for the News Industry
By Ross DawsonThe higher the degree of uncertainty, the greater the value of using scenarios.
One of the deepest uncertainties today is the future shape of the news industry, which certainly faces deep challenges from both producer and consumer perspectives.
However it is feasible that the news industry can find its way to both strength both financially and in terms of social contribution.
This publication is framed around how we can create a positive future for news. Generating some simple scenarios on different possible high-level outcomes for the industry can help industry participants to consider both what they believe is most likely, and what they believe is possible.
Two of the key uncertainties in the future of news are:
Mapping these two variables gives us four quadrants as shown below.
Exploring these high-level scenarios allows us to examine our beliefs on what is likely or possible in the future of news. I will lay out what I see as possible across these quadrants.
You may have different opinions; in fact the true value of these scenarios is in helping to consider what you see is likely or possible in the future of news.
Distributed news
High news quality | Low industry prosperity
It is certainly plausible that we move to a world in which individuals have access to high-quality news but news organizations do not prosper. This would almost certainly be significantly based on crowdsourcing and the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Crowdsourcing is not just user-generated content. In a workshop on Crowdsourcing for Media I ran in New York I identified 12 applications of crowdsourcing to news, including investigation, data gathering, fact checking, copyediting, and metadata tagging. It is also important to note that crowdsourcing is not always unpaid, as many in the media seem to think. It is participation by many people, sometimes experts, to achieve superior or more efficient results.
Blockchain could prove to be an excellent platform for getting and rewarding participation. The startup Civil provides an intriguing example of how this may work, particularly in supporting talented individual journalists.
AI is of course already being used to support journalists in structured reporting such as on financial reports and sports results. While there is significant uncertainty how fast this will progress, it is highly feasible that experienced journalists supported by AI will be able to focus their capabilities on the domains where deep investigation and insights are needed.
There are a variety of other ways this scenario could come to pass, including technological and structural mechanisms that could see efficient news delivery.
Agenda-driven news
Low news quality | High industry prosperity
On the face of it this scenario is highly unlikely, potentially implausible. Surely if the news industry is prosperous it will have sufficient resources to generate high-quality news?
This is certainly likely. However, there is the possibility that news organizations become primarily driven by specific political or social agendas, thus leading to an impoverished news landscape. It appears this trend is already developing. This could be accentuated if audiences continue to be polarized by political stance, requiring news organizations to make choices on their coverage.
Another situation that could lead to this scenario is that the companies that are reaping the most rewards from the news landscape are failing to invest in quality news, even though that could support their profitability.
News implosion
Low quality news | Low industry prosperity
This is the great fear of the last decade and more, that the rapid erosion of financial resources at news organizations leads to decreasing news quality and in turn to reducing audiences and revenue in a particularly vicious cycle. It is easy to point to the demise of many news organizations and deteriorating quality at many others as headcounts and budgets have been sliced.
This is indeed a plausible scenario, which many people seem to be taking almost as a given. However, any solid futures methodology examines the responses to trends. Responses to this scenario developing include the concerted efforts by many to drive higher quality news through technological solutions, philanthropy, crowdfunding, and other approaches.
Increasing industry prosperity could come on the other side of a dark valley in which many existing structures for news creation are lost, allowing a fresh start for new and more contemporary business models unencumbered by legacy cost structures and audience positioning.
News-powered progress
High quality news | High industry prosperity
In this world a virtuous cycle of high-quality news feeds industry prosperity and the ability to improve the news landscape to one that is substantially better than we have ever had before. Hopefully, but not necessarily, this would help create a better-informed, more proactive society that shapes a more positive future for humanity in fraught times.
This would likely to be supported by new technologies, broader distribution, high audience engagement, and broad participation in news creation to support the work of news professionals.
However there are potentially many paths and scenarios, all quite different in their detail, that could lead to this quadrant being realized.
Starting with the belief that a positive future of news is possible
The intent of my work on creating the future of news is to explore the potential paths to a world of higher quality news and higher industry prosperity. This will undoubtedly be better than one in which the industry doesn’t prosper, not least in supporting the highest possible quality of news.
The first step to creating a positive future of news is to believe it is possible. It cannot be done without that belief. That doesn’t mean that it will be inevitable or even that it will be easy, simply that it is conceivable.
From that belief we can explore how we might get there, and as an industry and society take the actions most likely to create it.
Can The Trust Project’s Plan to Win Back Audiences Work?
By Jenna OwsianikThe news industry is dealing with some serious trust issues. Yet even as confidence in the global media sinks to an all-time low, hopes for regaining it are far from lost.
The Trust Project, comprised of a consortium of news organizations and tech platforms, have a plan to win back audiences by sharing more information behind the creation of news stories online.
Staging a comeback
Led and created by Sally Lehrman, the senior director of journalism ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, The Trust Project began growing roots in 2015 and officially launched in November 2017.
First on the agenda was to determine what consumers value in news and what makes them trust it.
Over two years, researchers conducted dozens of interviews across Europe and the United States to get the information they wanted. Then with collaborators from more than 75 new organizations, the initiative devised a set of digital standards meant to increase accountability and transparency.
They agreed on eight core “Trust Indicators” to roll out to help identify and surface high-quality journalism:
To see an early example of the Trust Indicators applied to a news story, view this mockup.
Notably, The Trust Project’s scope extends beyond online news sites. Through partnerships with tech giants like Facebook and Google, the goal is to send such platforms machine-readable signals they can incorporate into what articles they display and how.
The following video shows how Facebook plans to display the indicators on articles in its News Feed:
Will it work?
The Trust Project’s goal to restore confidence in the news media, while cutting through misinformation and fake news, is commendable. Pairing abysmal trust scores with publishers’ rocky transition to digital (if they have survived long enough to get that far), many online news outlets are sitting in precarious positions. Implementing strategies that could both bring them more traffic and rebuild their public credibility would be like killing two very threatening birds with one stone.
However, at this point incorporating the eight core indicators may translate into little more than a well-meaning gesture.
According to Laura Hazard Owen of Nieman Lab, the first publishers that will display the Trust Indicators alongside its content will include:
The leanings of the majority of the above publications are left or center-left, excluding The Independent Journal Review, The Economist, and German Press Agency.
To complicate matters further, in countries such as the US and UK, which The 2017 Digital News Report shows have both polarized political and media climates, consumers are more likely to trust news sources that correspond to their own political leanings. This is true even though consumers in both countries show low trust levels in news outlets overall.
It is then questionable whether adding more context behind the creation of a Washington Post article would make it appear more credible to a right-wing conservative. Nevertheless, perhaps the widespread adoption of the Trust Indicators across diverse online publications could make audiences with different political views more open to reading articles from publishers they would normally avoid.
Uncertain future for tech partnerships
Tech giants Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Bing are already onboard with The Trust Project. In an article in The Atlantic published in May, Lehrman said:
How these collaborations will affect search engine results and social news feeds is not yet clear. Again, Owen notes that there have been no public promises from the platforms regarding whether their algorithms will give preference to publishers using the Trust Indicators.
As the small group of first wave of publishers roll them out, favoring The Trust Project collaborators could also be criticized as an unfair advantage. Small and independent publishers won’t be given the opportunity to join in the foreseeable future, which could significantly harm traffic flow from social media and search engines. However, this outcome rests on the assumption that technology platforms will, in fact, give preference to the Trust Indicators.
In the end, what’s most important about the project is the intent not only to create a standardized method to assess trustworthiness, but that this will eventually help raise the quality of online journalism overall.
Restoring public confidence in the media will be no simple task that one initiative will likely be able to tackle on its own. As The Trust Project launches and new reports and statistics on poor trust levels continue to emerge, the global media certainly has its work cut out for itself. It’s time, more than ever, to keenly monitor the impact of such strategies and keep dialogue open on how they can be improved, refined, and built upon.
6 characteristics of education of the future and how credentials will change
By Ross DawsonThe Commonwealth Bank Jobs and Skills of the Future Report I wrote recently dug into how work and jobs are changing and what skills will be required. These shifts in work mean it is crystal clear that education must also change.
Below is an excerpt from the report giving a snapshot of some of the shifts needed in education:
Education of the Future
Looking further into the future of education, we may see a radical restructuring of how we learn, not just in schools and universities, but through our entire life. Classrooms will continue to exist, enhanced through the use of a wide range of new tools, technologies and methodologies. Education will also become an ongoing part of everyone’s lives, and embedded into our employment, helping us improve our skills and capabilities while we work.
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