The Top 10 Beyond Bylines Posts of 2024
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As 2024 draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of our readers’ favorite posts from the year. We published more than 100 posts in 2024, and the most popular ones cover a range of topics.
From timely AP Style reminders to self-editing and stress relief tips, the most-read posts of the year offered ways to make journalists’ jobs easier. Several posts also looked at the state of the industry, including major media news topics like AI, downsizing and podcasts.
Here’s what our readers loved this year.
1. AP Style Rules & Reminders for the Summer
The first of several AP style recaps to make the most-read list for 2024 covered a range of timely holidays like Pride Month, Juneteenth and Father’s Day. We also covered a few must-know terms surrounding the Summer Olympics and helped journalists prepare for their back-to-school coverage.
2. A Few AP Style Reminders to Kick Off Fall
These quarterly rule recaps continued to draw readers when we published our fall update. This edition covered the busy holiday season, election terminology to know ahead of Nov. 5 and a wide range of football reminders as the new season began (playoff vs. playoff and kickoff vs. kickoff, for example).
3. The Writer’s Guide to Self-Editing: 7 Essential Tips
Self-editing isn’t just about fixing errors; it’s about refining your voice and making sure your message hits home — and it’s well worth the effort. These self-editing tips help sharpen your focus, improve clarity and make your writing more impactful.
4. A Few Timely AP Style Reminders for Spring
The spring AP style roundup landed at #4 for the year. This post included reminders for the March Madness tournament (is it tip off or tipoff?), big election terms ahead of many states’ primaries and helpful finance-related reminders for reporters covering the busy earnings period.
5. 6 Journalism Tools to Try in 2024
For the writers who made a New Year’s resolution to try a new journalism tool, this post came at the right time. In this February blog, we listed a few newer but trusted tools, many of which include some form of AI, that can help with visualizations, transcription, coding and more.
6. Acquisitions, Audio and AI: Media News Recap for April
In the spring, we transitioned our weekly media news recaps into monthly roundups that take a more in-depth look at the big trends that shaped the industry in the weeks prior. This first roundup looked at a wave of M&A deals in the media industry, the growth of podcasts (which became even more apparent in the lead-up to Election Day) and the latest AI developments in the media.
7. Coding for Journalists: Why It’s Useful & Where to Start
The share of data journalists who use coding daily is increasing rapidly (58% in 2023 against 32% in 2022), according to the 2023 State of Data Journalism survey. With that in mind, we put together this post to dig into how a working knowledge of coding can benefit journalists, which coding language you should learn and the resources to help you get started.
8. 5 Stress Management Tips for Journalists, PR Pros and Beyond
Journalists face unique challenges that can hit hard and it’s important that they and their employers be aware and have the tools to deal with stressors. During Stress Awareness Month, we put together five suggestions to help reporters and PR pros cope with stress whenever it hits.
9. Journalists Weigh In on AI, Data and Industry Downsizing
Cision’s 2024 State of the Media Report surveyed more than 3,000 journalists to get insight into their biggest challenges, how they work and what they want from PR and comms pros. Our team took a look at several of the big questions we had for this year’s respondents and their sometimes surprising answers.
10. A 2024 Sports Calendar to Help You Plan Your Coverage
Always a popular post to bookmark and return to again and again throughout the year, the 2024 sports calendar helped reporters prep for big sporting events like the Big Game, Summer Olympics, Tour de France, F1 Grand Prix and much more. Stay tuned because our 2025 sports calendar will be published soon!
Honorable Mentions
These posts may not have been published in 2024, but they continued to resonate with journalists and bloggers throughout the year. Here’s hoping they continue to provide helpful tips and tools for journalists in the year to come!
- The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging and How to Avoid Them
- Writing Portfolio Spring Cleaning: What to Keep and What to Toss
- 12 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers
- 20 Helpful Verification Tools for Journalists
See you next year!
The Beyond Bylines team wishes you and yours a wonderful holiday season. We’ll be back in 2025 with new posts covering media news, standout blogs, writing tips and more!
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Rocky Parker is the Manager of Audience and Journalist Engagement at Cision PR Newswire. She's been with the company since 2010 and has worked with journalists and bloggers as well as PR and comms professionals. Outside of work, she can be found trying a new recipe, binging a new show, or cuddling with her pitbull, Hudson.
