The Poynter stories readers talked about — and we couldn’t stop thinking about — in 2025

If you’ve spent any time on this site this year, or paid even passing attention to media news, you already know the throughline that unites many of our top stories: press freedom.

Just like 2024, and 2023, and 2022, it was another tough year for journalism and those who recognize its importance in our democracy. But while recent years were defined largely by financial hardship, the profession took some body blows from a new place in 2025: the federal government.

Still, press freedom wasn’t the only story that defined the media — or that captured our readers’ attention — this year. Read on for some journalism success stories, reexaminations of longstanding myths and legends, surprising moments of “personal news” (as we like to call it), generational divides and classic memes that reveal just how much the industry has changed.