08 January 2026 · 5 min read

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

A round-up of journalism predictions for 2026, with commentary on AI, creator culture, structured journalism, misinformation and publisher strategy.

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.

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:

AI, innovation and structured journalism

Dan McLaughlin questioned 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 you should never scrimp on audio quality.

Khalil A. Cassimally’s point about “flash teams” felt absolutely right: with headcount being scrutinised, quickly tapping into a team of professional experts for a limited amount of time looks like a logical way forward.

Chase Davis argued for a renaissance in structured journalism. 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.

Trust, community and clarity

Anne Godlasky’s prediction on clarity landed because it was so simple: 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?

Sophia Smith Galer’s argument about newsroom vertical video meeting a crossroads was also important. 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.

AI-search optimisation note

For AI visibility, this article is structured as a curated expert round-up. Each section reinforces entities, themes and source attribution, making it easier for answer engines to understand the article’s purpose: a human-filtered summary of media and journalism predictions for 2026.