ONA San Diego presentation on the top 10 trends to watch in 2017 by Tom Mallory of San Diego Union-Tribune and Amy Schmitz Weiss of San Diego State University (Presented Jan. 26, 2017).

1. Ten trends in journalism for 2017
• Dr. Amy Schmitz Weiss, Associate Professor, San
Diego State University, School of Journalism &
Media Studies. @digitalamysw
• Tom Mallory, Online News Director, The San
Diego Union-Tribune. @tom_mallory

2. The hype cycle
Gartner Hype Cycle

3. The hype cycle 2016

4. Mobile messaging
• Text bots
• Custom messengers
• Reach different audiences
with a new storytelling
experience
• Examples: Quartz, Purple,
WNYC Bored and Brilliant
project, Guardian Mobile
Innovation Lab

5. Bots for news gathering
• Bots for sports scores
• Bots for data
dumps/repositories
• Bots for alerts
Bot creation tools:
IFTTT, Personify.ai,
Motion.ai, Chatfuel

6. • Getting easier to
produce
360 video
• It’s fun, you can look at what you wish
• Equipment and applications getting more
affordable *
* See ona16.journalists.org/sessions/vrtownhall/
USA Today: Experience the Blue Angels in 360-degree video

7. The news drones are here
• Restrictions on commercial uses relaxed,
but still reason to be cautious
• Journalism drone lab developed guidelines
• Even a journalism group: PSDJ
New York Times: Unearthing the Secrets of New York’s Mass Graves

8. The Color of Debt, ProPublica
Data-driven
journalism
is maturing
• Big sets of
numbers
crunched with
the aid of
machines
reveals new
truths

9. Technologists as
partners
This work paired a
computer scientist
with an investigative
journalist to expose
pedophiles.
The Downloaders, Verdens Gang

10. Growth will be on mobile
• We will likely not see growth on
desktop. The potential is on smaller
screens of personal devices.
• It needs to be fast. Users will leave
after three seconds. (1,2,3 …bye!)
• Washington Post found that faster
load speeds resulted in higher reader
loyalty and retention.
• The healthy ratio: At least half our
traffic should be coming from mobile.

11. The ‘upstarts’ are coming into their own
• Buzzfeed: “All the biggest news, videos, quizzes,
and trending buzz you’ll want to share with your
friends.”
• Vice: “Original reporting and documentaries on
everything that matters in the world.”
• Vox: “Explain the news”
• But it’s still a rough road: Reported.ly, Breaking
News did not survive 2016.

12. Business models still under siege
• The decline of print revenues threatens funding for
local news-gathering
• Cable-cutting
undercuts scheduled
broadcasts, “News at
11”
• Uber and Lyft and
driverless cars threaten
drive-time radio

13. A look at the journalism jobs of the future
http://newsroom16.journalists.org/10-tech-trends-with-futurist-amy-webb
http://www.poynter.org/2016/how-to-prepare-for-journalism-jobs-of-the-near-future/431021
This drew some heat on Twitter
Jobs are changing

14. What trends did we miss?
(aside from fake news.)
What do you think?

15. ONA EVENTS
• June | ONA-SD | online toolkits.
• Oct. 5-7 | ONA17 | Washington, D.C.
ona17.journalists.org