ISSUE

Fall 2016

What Journalists Must Do Next

In the wake of the presidential election, as journalists continue to critique their coverage, the urgency for new approaches to political reporting has been underscored time and again. The insightful essays collected in Nieman Reports reflect on this historic campaign while pointing the way forward for journalism. Journalists, historians, and academics explore the issues, challenges, and opportunities—from newsroom diversity to fake news to community news outlets—that will inform approaches going forward.

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Articles

Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, and the Black and White Truth
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Al Sharpton, Donald Trump, and the Black and White Truth

A fast-talking, prolific headline-making man from New York with a controversial record on the issue of race showed up on the political scene to run for the presidency of the…
Issac J. Bailey
December 14, 2016
Niemans @ Work

Bill Church, NF ’16, seeks to join core values and new approaches as he guides newsrooms toward reinvention

What should newsrooms look like in the future?No one knows the answer.But there is energy in uncertainty. And the best way to find an answer is start an adventure. Even…
Bill Church
December 14, 2016
Floyd McKay, NF ’68, draws on his daily reporting for a book about an era that transformed the state of Oregon
Niemans @ Work

Floyd McKay, NF ’68, draws on his daily reporting for a book about an era that transformed the state of Oregon

When journalism becomes work—as opposed to adventure—it’s time to move on; that’s what I did after three decades as a reporter and commentator in print and television, at the Oregon…
Floyd McKay
December 14, 2016
Andrea McCarren, NF ’07, finds a four-legged friend is an asset for her reporting
Niemans @ Work

Andrea McCarren, NF ’07, finds a four-legged friend is an asset for her reporting

Over decades of reporting, my toolbox has evolved: from a pen and notebook to a smartphone, and for the last year, a 75-pound English Labrador retriever named Bunce.He’s named for…
Andrea McCarren
December 14, 2016
Get Serious About Getting Rid of Fake News
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Technology

Get Serious About Getting Rid of Fake News

One way to think of the job journalism does is telling a community about itself, and on those terms the American media failed spectacularly this election cycle. That Donald Trump’s…
Joshua Benton
December 14, 2016
Earn Back the Right to Serve as Watchdogs
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Earn Back the Right to Serve as Watchdogs

President-elect Donald Trump’s recent victory stunned a lot of Americans, not the least of which were members of the elite media, who couldn’t fathom the possibility that A) the so-called…
Matt K. Lewis
December 7, 2016
The Way Forward
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism From the Curator

The Way Forward

For many mornings on my way into the Chicago Tribune newsroom, I passed by an Arthur Miller quote engraved in the lobby: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation…
Ann Marie Lipinski
November 30, 2016
Democracy at the Dinner Table
Sounding

Democracy at the Dinner Table

I often feel my job is to trick people into paying attention to the world around them. Beauty, light, and composition are my tools to draw one’s eye into the…
Andrea Bruce
November 29, 2016
Four Steps to Strengthening Journalism's Role in Our Democracy
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Four Steps to Strengthening Journalism’s Role in Our Democracy

Focus is one of journalism’s most important skills. It’s that separating the wheat from the chaff thing. In an age of distraction we need THAT skill now more than ever.…
Michael Oreskes
November 22, 2016
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism
Uncategorized

Election ’16: Lessons for Journalism

As journalists continue to critique their coverage of the presidential election, Nieman Reports is publishing an ongoing series of articles exploring the issues, challenges and opportunities—from newsroom diversity to fake…
November 22, 2016
What Went Wrong—and Right—with Campaign Coverage
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

What Went Wrong—and Right—with Campaign Coverage

There was a whole lot that went right in 2016 campaign coverage.If you were reading Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, PRRI’s Robert Jones, or New America’s Lee Drutman, you understood how race,…
Perry Bacon
November 22, 2016
Still An Outsider in Mainstream Journalism
Diversity Election '16: Lessons for Journalism

Still An Outsider in Mainstream Journalism

I watched election-night coverage on television with acquaintances from Europe, who seemed flummoxed by what was unfolding on the screen. I spent a lot of time explaining the Electoral College…
Ricardo Sandoval Palos
November 22, 2016
Journalists Need to Better Explain What Journalists Do … Including Me
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Opinion

Journalists Need to Better Explain What Journalists Do … Including Me

Donald Trump’s precedent-breaking refusal to allow a small pool of journalists to cover his travels as president-elect has revealed some common ground in our otherwise fractured republic.Good, Trump supporters tell…
Michael Calderone
November 18, 2016
Creating Community-Centered, Not Candidate-Centered, Narratives
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Local News

Creating Community-Centered, Not Candidate-Centered, Narratives

In covering the local election season in Dare County, North Carolina–best known as the home of the Outer Banks–journalists can’t be accused of paying too much attention to an unending…
Mark Jurkowitz
November 18, 2016
The Problem with Polls Isn’t Technological, It’s Political
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

The Problem with Polls Isn’t Technological, It’s Political

“Election polling is in near crisis,” the political scientist Cliff Zukin wrote in The New York Times in June of 2015, a year and a half before the Dewey-Defeats-Truman of…
Jill Lepore
November 16, 2016
Predicting Outcomes Is Not Our Job
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Predicting Outcomes Is Not Our Job

One thing I worry about is the seeming expectation that the press should have been able to predict the outcome of the election. And that “we got it wrong.” Clairvoyance is…
Keven Ann Willey
November 16, 2016
Relevance over Reach, Value over Volume
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Relevance over Reach, Value over Volume

Among journalism’s many failings in this election, our greatest, I think, is this: We in liberal media (let’s admit that much, at least) abandoned and, in turn, were abandoned by…
Jeff Jarvis
November 15, 2016
All Journalism is Local
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Local News

All Journalism is Local

Being a political animal, one of my first thoughts the morning after the election was, “Who’s going to run for President now?”You can rest assured that there are a dozen or…
Nicco Mele
November 14, 2016
Closing Gaps in the Name of Democracy
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Politics

Closing Gaps in the Name of Democracy

Everyone has a story along the lines of mine. At a family gathering in October, I was chatting with a cousin about the campaign, and, since we didn’t see it…
Evan Osnos
November 13, 2016
Let the Interlopers In
Diversity Election '16: Lessons for Journalism

Let the Interlopers In

I remember the day the Los Angeles Times decided to hire me. I’d been freelancing for the paper out of California’s Central Valley. Ashley Dunn, then the metro editor, came…
Diana Marcum
November 12, 2016
Looking for “Whitelash”
Diversity Election '16: Lessons for Journalism

Looking for “Whitelash”

The signs that someone like Donald Trump was coming were right there, in online comments lousy with creatively spelled racial slurs that slipped past even the best filters. They were…
Wendi C. Thomas
November 11, 2016
Responding to Our Oral Culture
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Opinion

Responding to Our Oral Culture

Sometime late last winter, I began to focus closely on what would happen in the primaries on Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016. I realized I really needed to get on…
Danielle Allen
November 11, 2016
How Collaborative Media Partnerships Can Help Rebuild Local and Regional Journalism
Election '16: Lessons for Journalism Local News

How Collaborative Media Partnerships Can Help Rebuild Local and Regional Journalism

The chasm between the coastal media centers and the country’s heartland is laid bare. Deep discontent, long simmering in the manufacturing Midwest and Appalachian coal country, went largely unrecognized until…
Jeff Young
November 10, 2016
Jill Abramson: “You’ve Got to Get a Younger Generation in the Habit of Reading That Highest-Quality Journalism”
Live @ Lippmann

Jill Abramson: “You’ve Got to Get a Younger Generation in the Habit of Reading That Highest-Quality Journalism”

Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times from 2011 to 2014, worked at the Times for 17 years. Now she is writing a political column for The Guardian; teaching…
October 26, 2016
The New Wisdom of the Crowd
Books

The New Wisdom of the Crowd

Scandinavian media giant Schibsted publishes Verdens Gang or VG, the number one online newspaper in Norway and the nation’s number two print daily. Schibsted’s approach to news is noteworthy because it “boasts…
Bharat Anand
October 18, 2016
Uncategorized

Seeking the Ultimate Complement

While Schibsted has capitalized on the power of “user connections”—fostering the development of networks that connect users—Anand’s research also underscored the importance of “product connections.” One example is the case…
Bharat Anand
October 18, 2016
Crowdfunding the News
Uncategorized

Crowdfunding the News

On June 25, 2013, Texas state Senator Wendy Davis spent nearly 11 hours on the chamber floor filibustering a bill that would have restricted access to abortion in her state.…
Gabe Bullard
September 26, 2016
Access, Accountability Reporting and Silicon Valley
Watchdog

Access, Accountability Reporting and Silicon Valley

The first time I visited Facebook’s office in Washington, D.C., I was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I didn’t. Then there was the time I got through an entire…
Adrienne LaFrance
August 17, 2016
Reporting on Islam
Uncategorized

Reporting on Islam

The concept was simple: Seven Californian Muslims, each photographed against a grey background, talking about the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” usually translated as “God is great.” No voiceovers. No cutaways. Just…
Carla Power
July 6, 2016