By Poynter staff
Poynter is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025 and, like any good newsroom, it’s doing so with a list. A big one.
The yearlong Poynter 50 project will highlight 50 pivotal moments, figures and events that have shaped journalism over the past half-century — and continue to shape its future. Inspired by ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series, the idea is to revisit stories that were significant at the time but may not have been fully appreciated in their moment.
“It wasn't just a list of the 30 most famous athletes or games or moments,” said Tom Jones, senior writer, in the latest episode of “The Poynter Report Podcast.” “They were 30 people, moments, things, events that were a big deal at the time, but maybe we had forgotten how big a deal they were. Maybe we didn't realize their importance at the time, or moving forward, the profound impact that they would have.”
Take CNN’s live coverage of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which helped cement cable news as a dominant force.
“This was probably the first time Americans saw war live at home on their television sets, which is — it’s world changing,” said Poynter managing editor and podcast guest Ren LaForme. “But what this story is really about is cable news stepping up and saying, ‘This is our landscape now. We can do a lot of this work best. We can show you what’s happening in the world live.’”
Other upcoming entries on The Poynter 50 list include the launch of the Drudge Report and its impact on political reporting, the San Jose Mercury News becoming the first newspaper to publish online (and the unintended consequences of giving away journalism for free), and the release of “All the President’s Men,” which inspired generations of investigative reporters.
LaForme sees a thread running through these choices: how media constantly evolves, often in ways no one could have predicted. “It also makes me take a double-take at everything that happens,” he said. “Disney announced FiveThirtyEight’s closure and I’m like, ‘What does this mean?’” Could it be the first domino in a series?
The Poynter 50 list isn’t finished yet. Poynter is inviting journalists and news consumers to weigh in.
“It can’t be just, ‘Hey, remember that famous moment?’” Jones said. “It had to have an impact on media. So hopefully people can get what we're talking about and contribute to this list.”
What will the next 50 years bring? Jones and LaForme aren’t making predictions, but if history is any guide, the future will be just as unpredictable as the past. “You couldn't have predicted the internet in 1975 in the way that it exists now,” LaForme said. “So I think it would be silly for us to sit here and try to (guess) — but I do think it’s robots.”
Listen and subscribe
Follow “The Poynter Report Podcast” on your preferred podcasting app (and don’t forget to leave us a rating and review):
Previous episodes
Credits:
The Poynter Report Podcast is produced by the Department of Journalism and Digital Communication at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg
- Host: Tom Jones
- Executive Producers: Elliott Wiser and Ren LaForme
- Producers: Rhiannon Mcisaac, Noah Chase and Tom Jones
- Director: Christopher Campbell
- Special thank you: Neil Brown and Dr. Mark Walters
