Editor’s note: we are republishing a version of the note that previously appeared as a special edition of The Fix Media’s flagship newsletter. Subscribe to get everything you need to know about the European media market every Monday, along with monthly special reports.

Today let’s look at the most important stories that defined 2023 and ahead into what will make the coming year.

The biggest global story for news publishers has been the advent of generative AI. It hasn’t reshaped the industry – a study by the Reuters Institute shows that most newsroom leaders believe “generative AI will help newsrooms increase productivity and improve workflows without changing the essence of journalism”. But big changes have been underway, and news media have been forced to grapple with what they will mean.

As generative AI threatens to undermine important business models, particularly search traffic (and as social traffic is already declining considerably), the importance of building a direct connection with the audience has been perhaps the most recurring theme in our coverage. Newsletters, apps, podcasts, events, and sometimes even good old websites might all be useful tools, depending on the publisher.

Twitter, once the predominant social network for journalists, has been declining under Elon Musk’s leadership. Rumours of its death have been exaggerated, and now-X remains an important platform for news, but more serious alternatives have emerged over the past year. LinkedIn became a more useful place, and Meta launched Threads, X’s highest-profile competitor to date. No one platform is likely to occupy the place Twitter once did, but the ensuing fragmentation will likely be a good thing for most reporters.

At the same time, we’ve continued to grapple with existential life-and-death questions. Russia’s war against Ukraine goes on with no clear end in sight. Ukraine’s media sector has managed to adapt to wartime conditions, and freedom of speech in the country remains unusually high for a state under martial law, but long-term viability of both Ukraine’s larger war efforts and its independent media are an important concern.

In Russia, the Kremlin’s crackdown forced out of the country what remained of its free press. The independent media sector in exile does a lot of important work but also faces major risks and existential questions. “Exiled media outlets, forced to reinvent their operating models, tend to establish themselves not as businesses but rather as non-profit organisations or activism projects”, Veronica Snoj wrote for The Fix in August.

What comes next? Obviously, we can’t predict what black swan events will materialise next year. “We don’t know what the next thing is. It could be another pandemic, climate disasters, anti-democratic governments, wars or something else entirely, but even if we don’t know what the future holds, we need to be ready to face it”, Emma Löfgren noted for The Fix.

Barring that, 2024 will accelerate the trends of the past year. AI will be even more prominent, the social media landscape will become more fragmented, and establishing direct control over reaching your audience will remain a crucial task.

In one prediction from the collection published by NiemanLab, Alfred Hermida notes that “the journalism industry has to prepare for an imminent post-search and post-social world” as Google and especially Meta are moving away from news.

Governments need to help protect press freedom and save local news, but publishers also need to be smart and flexible. Part of the adaptation is embracing new revenue streams. “2024 will see the quickened rise of innovative, unfamiliar, and even uncomfortable revenue streams for Europe’s nonprofits”, Adam Thomas writes in his prediction.

For more insights from the past year and about 2024, check the “From The Fix” section, as well as a full collection of predictions put out by NiemanLab.

Eight stories from The Fix

Ten defining events in news media in 2023 (by Anton Protsiuk, December 2023)

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Looking back at 2023 and ahead to 2024

TV advertising downturn in the UK, Twitter exodus – weekly news digest