This article was taken from the July 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
Luke Lewis, Editor, BuzzFeed UK
"Thanks to a slew of new entrants, the future of journalism online looks competitive, high quality and well funded. Not long ago, many people thought of digital news as a race to the bottom: we'd end up with nothing but SEO-driven gossip and multi-page galleries. Now, as page views recede as a key metric, quality is back. I think we're entering a new golden age. Companies like BuzzFeed and Vice have figured out how to make ad-funded journalism work financially, enabling us to hire reporters all around the world. There's also a new wave of publishers, such as Vox, who place technology front and centre, and think of content as not just words on a page but a product that can be fine-tuned and optimised."
Jason Seiken, Editor-in-chief, The Telegraph
"Pessimists worry that we are descending into a world dominated by emptiness, but the news business has always had its equivalent of the listicle. Tabloid journalism historically outsells quality journalism. Clickbait sells, and that's fine. Serious journalists will get better at harnessing new reporting technologies -- from data-mining tools to drones equipped with pollution-monitoring sensors -- and coming up with exciting ways to present news and information. Whether your taste is serious or irreverent, we are entering a golden age of journalism."
Janine Gibson, Editor-in-chief, theguardian.com
"Will the future be behind a paywall or in the billionaire-funded specialities of extremely talented individuals? Broad and narrow or deep and vertical? I think there's probably a two-pronged direction. One is very fast, real-time and super-social; the second is measured, original, rich and exclusive. The trick is to do both.
Trusted publishers who invest in authoritative journalism will continue to thrive and those who gain momentary traction with VC-funded tools will continue to get rich. In the end, the story will win. It's always all about the story."
Micah Cohen, Senior editor,FiveThirtyEight
"The news needs more numbers. We define ourselves more by how we cover the news -- through data -- than by what we cover. The development of more niche, online-only outlets should help remove one of the worst incentives in journalism: the need to fill space.
There are many outlets -- The New York Times, AP et al -- who do a great job covering breaking stories. We'll cover the stories where we can add value. When we do it'll come in all formats -- from text, dataviz and podcasts to video - and either be a comprehensive, big-picture examination or home in on a sliver of a topic."
Melissa Bell, Cofounder, Vox
"News is news, a good story is a good story. What will and has shifted is how, when and where someone can get information, even if they don't realise they need it. This could be telling baseball fans a storm is rolling in, surfacing the historical context to a foreign conflict or fact-checking a political speech in real time.
What we need to figure out is how to deliver useful information in a world of noise, distractions and misrepresentations. We're all learning how to get better, from mobile alerts to infographics, but there is much further to go."
George Brock, Author, Out of Print
"Journalism adapts resiliently to disruption. Recent changes are stage one in the many that will be wrought by digital invention.
Business models and new ways of writing will be found through many new experiments, but the key lies in pursuing old aims: making sense of what we know; reporting on life as it happens; and holding power to account. Imagination will always trump financial calculations. In a world of bullet points, podcasts and video round-ups, I hope words -- essential for explaining complex ideas -- remain a big part of the future."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
