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My favourite Journalism 2026 Predictions helpfully summarised, but not by AI!

  • Writer: Steven Wilson-Beales
    Steven Wilson-Beales
  • 13 hours ago
  • 5 min read

As a content specialist, I’m a big fan of end-of-year journalism predictions for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's always good to hear from experts you might not have read before; secondly, it’s ALWAYS beneficial to study HOW they describe the current state-of-play (you can learn a lot from metaphors) and thirdly, well it’s just always good to get a temperature check on said state-of-play. Side Note: I did publish my own Journalism predictions in earlier in December which you can read here.

One thing I would say that was different this time round was that there were many more predictions published than in previous years AND a lot more writers were representing specific tools or services. I don’t think the last point is disingenuous in any way, but there was a lot more circling back to the benefits of their product. I guess, you can’t blame them - it’s a perfect promo opportunity and, anyway, editors have been doing that for yonks.


Here are some of my highlights from the plethora of entries:

I Loved Dan’s questioning of polished podcasts. How perfect do they actually have to be? Like video when it went vertical, let’s try to keep the barrier to podcast entry low - although, as I’ve mentioned below, you should never scrimp on audio quality.

It’s brutal but requires reading. "Next year will expose the gaping void between what the British journalism industry produces and what mass audiences are actually consuming”. Ouch!

I think Khali is absolutely right here - with headcount being scrutinised, using services where you can quickly tap into a team of professional experts for a limited amount of time looks like a logical way forward. I also wonder though if it brings the same risks as outsourcing your product or development teams e.g. short- term gains for long-term pains...

Rozina is hitting it on the nail here. Partnered collaborations are very much the way forward, particularly important , I would argue, to avoid partisan entrenchment.

Sofia’s point is crucial - don’t follow someone else’s playbook, look at your own data to work out the signals that your own audience is sending.

There is far too much fear out there about AI, and Burt details some clear reasons why we should embrace it more in our newsrooms.

Publishers should invest more in metadata. From my own experience this is always at the bottom of priorities but now that AI visibility is a factor, we may see more interest in this area, especially if a transaction is involved somewhere along the journey.

Charlie questions why far-right media has made such gains in 2025 and suggests the method of simply pointing to misinformation simply isn’t working. A new approach is required. As Charlie says: “So what works better than revealing their lies? You have to show what is right, believable, relevant, and positive. You have to be as authentic, accessible, and aware as that guy from the alt-right.”

I can’t emphasise how right Jon is here. You only have to look at the proliferation of AI Visibility trackers in 2025 to see how that confused publishers. If only we had labels that read: WARNING: May contain snake oil.

Yes, yes, yes! Although, I can imagine many product teams saying ‘No, no, no!’ But I do think that being able to spin up new digital experiences in response to a news story is a very interesting area to offer something very distinct.

Eloquent and on point. Again, do not fear AI, use it to enable journalists to focus on what’s most important.

“Can we balance public good with our bottom line? Or are we consigning ourselves to adopting the playbook written by companies optimizing for advertising revenue and user addiction?” - absolutely, do we just follow the spikes in traffic or do we work harder to control the direction we want to go in?

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / The diploma divide continues to grow

A healthy reminder that journalism needs to account for the digital divide and learn how it can carry a wider audience with it.

Can consuming news be a joyful experience? Stephanie thinks so and as we spend more time in our dopamine-fulled echo chambers, we’re going to need ‘delightful’ experiences to help us break out.

I can only hope for this one. What the world needs now is an avalanche of new ideas, so getting exposure to global perspectives is certainly a way forward.

“Journalists already have beats: now give them the equity and structural support that will help them build communities online in a fragmenting social media landscape, and not just a one-and-done explainer that is as ephemeral as yesterday’s newspaper.” Great points by Sophia who argues that the true skill of creators is the skill of building communities.

Anne Godlasky / 2026 is a call for clarity

I loved the simplicity of Anne’s piece here - why don’t we include why the journalist decided to become a journalist on their author bios? Why aren’t we clear and direct about what we are trying to achieve as a publisher?

“I hope 2026 is the year we replace our obsession with trust with some other currency that better assesses what we actually want and want to provide audiences: interest, respect, commitment, or engagement that results in a better-informed citizenry.”

Talia Stroud / Taking bias seriously

When I worked with The Newsagents team, someone said we were as partisan as GB News. The comment threw me initially, but in time, it made me check the biases more. Talia’s words are spot on.


You can read more predictions here:

 
 
 

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