Mobilities, Immobilities and News Work: The New Normal of Award-Winning Journalists

Abstract

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the routines of face-to-face news gathering and newsroom interaction were severely disrupted by the new normal of physical distancing and remote work. So far, journalism scholars have addressed news production, performance, employment and mental health, among other topics, but not the mobilities and immobilities of journalists during this period. Taking this into account, this article studies the perceptions and experiences on the new normal of the award-winning news workers employed by digital-born or digital-only news organizations in the country that ranks fourth in the world in deaths of journalists from COVID-19, Mexico. Drawing on sociological perspectives on mobility and risk, as well as on semi-structured interviews, its emphasis is on their physical and virtual mobilities and immobilities. The analysis exhibits how different forms of capital enabled and disabled the movement of this population, and how this was mediated by risk. Its objective is not only to examine how did these news workers coped with the new normal, but to analyze how they exerted their journalistic and mobility capitals to alter their working conditions, professional practices and personal lives during the pandemic and beyond.