News Insiders Pick 2024’s Most Historic Moments: ‘The Year of Trump’

Matt King, vice president of news at NewsNation

1. Historians will look back at 2024 as The Year of Trump. From the mugshot to the White House, the ‘Comeback Don’ created a breakneck political news cycle the likes journalism has never seen before. In a five-month span, America watched one historic event after another: Biden’s fateful debate, two Trump assassination attempts, Biden bowing out of the race, Harris leaping to the top of the ticket, and a warp-speed campaign that ended with Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

In the midst of it all, several other stories captivated the nation. We saw the immigration crisis spread to places far beyond the border, Sean Combs‘ fall from grace, UFO investigations, back-to-back hurricanes, the Caitlin Clark effect, Swifties, and a solar eclipse that reminded the world there is something out there much bigger than us all.

2. This year, I was proudest of our news organization when we achieved NewsNation’s vision since our inception: becoming a 24/7 cable news network for all Americans.

Sara Just, senior executive producer of PBS News Hour Productions and senior vice president of WETA

1. Certainly, the election of 2024 was an historic one, starting with the debate in June that changed the race (and undermined the “debates don’t matter” argument of years past) and then President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race in July. There have also been history making stories around the world this year, from the fall of the Assad regime in Syria just this month, or the war in Lebanon that seems to have rewritten the power structure in that contentious region.

2. This year, I was proudest of our news organization when we punch above our weight. We are a smaller newsroom than almost any other national broadcast and digital outlet, but our small and mighty team has broken records all year with creativity and ambition to bring our journalism to wider audiences on multiple platforms. The broadcast and digital collaboration has been humming all year but was especially apparent during the two political conventions.

Matt Simon, vice president of Scripps News

1. Putting aside the historic developments in the 2024 election—from President Biden’s decision to not seek re-election, to Vice President Harris’ groundbreaking nomination, to President Trump’s comeback to win another term—the breakthroughs in AI have significantly begun to impact our lives. Though ChatGPT launched in late 2022, as a society we began grappling with AI in a new way in 2024.

Nvidia—a computer hardware manufacturing company—had its revenue more than double as A.I. integration accelerated in everything from traffic lights to cars, medicine to education, and agriculture to office work. Scripps established new AI guidelines and AI-focused positions including a director of newsroom AI and a vice president of emerging technology operations as we evaluate tools that allow our newsrooms to foster innovation and creativity.