News Work Research Articles

Controlled connection: Substack and writers of color

Abstract Substack, a self-described “subscription network for independent writers and creators,” launched in 2017. Substack claims to be part of a better future for news workers, yet it has been embroiled in controversy and questions, particularly in recent years. In this article, we draw on interviews we conducted with journalists and writers of color who produce newsletters to better understand the opportunities and limitations of contemporary newsletter platforms. We find that studying the experiences of journalists of color reveals a nuanced and somewhat ambivalent picture of the journalism industry and people of color’s place within it. We find that the Substack models favors the status quo, a reality that further entrenches the success of White journalists. Yet writers of color value the safety enabled by sending writing directly to a small, defined, private audience, a contrast with social media logics and their compulsory visibility.

Transparency and fact-checking in open societies

Transparency is more than a motto for professional fact-checkers; it is a professional requirement that permeates their daily practice. Although transparency has been theorised and critiqued extensively in journalism studies, there has been less research on its practical implications for news workers. This paper aims to fill this gap by focusing on fact-checking practices in the Nordic countries. The paper highlights the double-edged sword of transparency by drawing on 14 semistructured interviews with fact-checkers and newsroom managers from the four independent fact-checking organisations in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Transparency is seen as a means to achieve accountability and credibility in reporting and as a tool to hold public figures accountable. However, transparency does not protect Nordic fact-checkers from criticism or harassment for delivering uncomfortable truths. This study also links fact-checkers discourses with the material traces of transparency on their respective websites, showing that transparency can be approached differently in practice. This research provides valuable insights into the nuanced role of transparency in fact-checkers’ daily routines while acknowledging its limitations in that transparency is not without flaws, even in societies characterised by a culture of openness and transparency.

From the “Desk Set” to “Doraemon”: A comparative analysis on the sociotechnical imaginaries of artificial intelligence in news work

Artificial intelligence has become increasingly pervasive throughout the entire news cycle. In response to this trend, this paper explores journalists’ sociotechnical imaginaries concerning the integration of AI in news production, focusing on their perceptions of AI’s opportunities and ethical challenges. The study also examines the influence of diverse media and discourse cultures on these perceptions by conducting problem-centered interviews with journalists from China, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK. Through an inductive thematic analysis of the interviews, the results reveal that journalists across these four countries acknowledge the potential advantages of AI in journalism, such as enhanced efficiency and improved data analysis. However, their expectations regarding human-machine collaboration in news work vary according to cultural contexts. Furthermore, the findings highlight that the interviewed journalists advocate for the design and implementation of AI systems to adhere to ethical standards.

The Pre-History of News-Industry Discourse Around Artificial Intelligence

This study examines how automation and then artificial intelligence (AI) was discussed by news workers in journalism trade publications in the 1980s and 1990s and through the 2000s and 2010s. This era saw the full computerization of the newsroom, as well as the introduction of the civilian, commercial internet and its adoption by the news and media industries. Limited use of automated and early AI tools in these fields dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, with the use of software such as spell- and grammar-checkers, as well as the first generation of word-processing tools. This included very early efforts at automated writing, such as for financial and sports news. With this complex origin story, the discourse around AI has a prehistory that deserves a deeper exploration and appreciation.

Conversations on ‘making the news’: A citizen journalism-oriented tool for empowering citizen advocates of journalism

This article explores an avenue for fostering a model of citizen journalism that is empowered by community dialogue about ‘making the news,’ interactive engagement with local news actors, and advocacy for journalism. The research effort features two key focal points. First—from a normative standpoint—it emphasizes a broader conceptualization of citizen journalism that includes citizen contributions to discussions about, and advocacy for, quality journalism in one’s community. Understanding that such empowerment necessitates (a) a basic belief that journalism has a degree of value/relevance to oneself and (b) a sense of agency in helping to improve the health of the local news media environment, this study draws on the concepts of citizen academies, Perceived News Media Importance, and self-efficacy. Second—representing an empirical focal point—this study initiates exploration of the utility of a journalism-themed citizen forum initiative (in the model of citizen academies) for fostering the community interactive dimension of “citizen journalism” outlined herein. Building on existing research of citizen forums, initial findings support the assertion that such initiatives have the capacity to reinforce the importance of news work (especially related to investigative journalism) while mitigating citizens’ self-perception of inefficacy in helping to support the local news media environment. Our discussion considers how future initiatives might be strengthened to most effectively motivate and empower citizens to advocate for this model of citizen journalism.

Audience analytics and tensions in digital news work: evidence from Swiss news media

PurposeTracing audience preferences via audience analytics software has become a vital strategy for many news organizations to ensure their competitiveness in media markets. Extant research also confirms the growing presence of these tools in digital news work in recent years across many local and international news media. However, little is understood about the analytics-driven tensions emerging among journalists and media managers. This paper aims to address this gap by drawing on the labor process theory, which critically analyzes labor and workplace transformations under capitalism.Design/methodology/approachThe present study employs an interview-based qualitative methodology to deeply understand the factors at the base of the emerging tensions between news workers and managers brought about by audience metrics tools.FindingsResults show how some perceptions, activities and contextual triggers related to analytics could make relationships between workers and managers problematic. The pressures felt by some journalists stemmed from the way their media managers introduced, interpreted, communicated and applied analytics in the workplace, which were not tied to the quality and learning goals related to journalists’ aspirations. As our evidence suggests, the analytics-induced tensions among news workers were rather an outcome of managerial deficits than of systematic plans to exploit journalists.Originality/valueBy identifying the nature of fundamental analytics-driven tensions in newsrooms, this paper contributes to our understanding of how media managers can embrace more effective approaches toward audience analytics, workforce and organizational performance.

Implications for Hybrid Newswork from the Work-from-Home Activities of Local US Television Journalists During COVID

ABSTRACT In response to the COVID-19 crisis, many local television (TV) newsrooms decided to have employees work from home (WFH) or from the field rather than from the newsroom, creating a kind of hybrid work characterized by a mix of work locations. From a review of research on telework and WFH, we identified possible impacts of WFH on work and on workers, with a particular focus on news work and news workers. Data on the impacts of hybrid work are drawn from interviews with local television news directors and journalists in the United States and observations of WFH. We found that through the creative application of technology, WFH news workers could successfully create a newscast, albeit with some concerns about story quality. However, WFH did not seem to satisfy workers’ needs for socialization or learning individually or as a group and created some problems coordinating work. Lifted restrictions on gatherings have mitigated some of the experienced problems, but we expect to see continued challenges to news workers’ informal learning in hybrid work settings.

Ethical Issues Confronting Namibian Hybrid Media Organizations in the Digital Age

There is a deep-seated realization that the uptake of digitization in newsrooms has necessitated the need for an ethical reformation. This article examines ethical issues confronting operations of selected Namibian hybrid media organizations. Using the Namibia Media Holdings and The Namibian as case studies, this article argues that the platformization of news work, ever-changing technological landscape, the immediacy of internet, media sustainability concerns, and the changing nature of public interest have reconfigured ethical decision-making in hybrid media organizations in Namibia. It demonstrates that although traditional journalism ethics are still relevant, there are new ethical issues confronting hybrid media organizations.

Beyond the ‘critical incident’: COVID-19, data journalism and the slow road to editorial automation in Australian newsrooms

This article draws on a qualitative interview-based study and the framework of the ‘critical incident’ to explore whether, how and for whom the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic saw an increased uptake of data-driven automation in Australian newsrooms and with what implications for the field. Our findings show that, while news workers combined and adapted existing technologies to meet increased demands for rolling, data-driven coverage of the pandemic, structural and institutional factors prevented the uptake and embedding of forms of data journalism and editorial automation that may have assisted with providing more timely and effective public health information. The findings highlight the importance of COVID-19 as both an acute event and an ongoing situation that has revealed and prompted reflection on the practical and political challenges of data flows between government agencies and news organisations.

“Communal News Work” as Sustainable Business Model: Recent Print-Centric News Start-Ups in Regional Queensland

The Covid-19 emergency in Australia precipitated the closure of dozens of print newspapers across Australia but, conversely, the heightened state of anxiety of the early Covid-19 period amplified the need for local information and communality. This was the impetus for a wave of print-centric newspaper start-ups. We previously examined 22 Covid-19 era start-ups in Queensland (see Barnes et al., 2022, p. 21–34) and found that their editors/publishers universally “reassert(ed) and claim(ed) more vigorously the normative values associated with community journalism as ‘social glue.’” These proprietors deployed an “affective rationale” as the foundation of their journalism and their “lean start-up” business models. We called this a “community cohesion model.” Returning to these start-ups 18 months after the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted in Queensland, we find that about 60% of these newspapers have continued operating, still drawing on deep wells of community support. They are transitioning to more conventional “newsonomics,” seeking—like the news organisations they replaced—to expand their advertising and raise other revenue, keep costs low, and expand their digital channels while remaining focussed on their core print offering. Drawing on in-depth interviews and editorial statements by editors/owners of these start-ups, as well as a close examination of advertising in the surviving newspapers, this study argues that adopting affective “hybrid” business models can be a basis for news organisations’ longer-term viability.

Creative Autonomy in the Newsroom: How Hierarchy Impacts Innovative Behaviour

ABSTRACT News organisations are in need of creativity to enable their own innovation. Yet “creative autonomy”, the freedom to experiment, to be creative, and to investigate radical possibilities at work, which is conditional to innovation processes, is still under-researched in journalism studies. In this article we fill this gap by addressing creative autonomy in newsrooms in transformation from an organisational perspective. We do so by using “innovative learning culture” or “ILC” as a lens to understand how creative autonomy is perceived within the newsroom, and what organisational aspects and social dynamics influence this perception. From a larger ethnographic study on innovative behaviour in two national newspaper newsrooms in the Netherlands, “creative autonomy” emerged as a relevant theme to journalists in both organisations. Their perception of creative autonomy is multi-layered, unevenly experienced across the newsroom, and strongly influenced by hierarchy. We also find that the perception of creative autonomy coincides with the perception of having close communicative relations with management. We argue that this can hinder the innovative behaviour of the majority of news workers who are not part of elite groups and typically perceive more distance from management.

“A Mercenary, a Thug … not Even a Journalist”: The Stigmatization of News Workers in Mexico

ABSTRACT This article proposes a novel approach to anti-press discourse by defining it as stigmatization of journalists and developing a case study on the most dangerous country for the practice of journalism in the world, Mexico. It examines the process of stigmatization of news workers during the López Obrador administration (2018–2024), stressing its escalation after a feature that exposed the luxurious lifestyle of the Mexican president’s eldest son was published in January 2022. Drawing upon Goffman and Link and Phelan, it analyzes how the labeling, stereotyping, separation and status loss of these actors are strategically aimed at shattering their performance of professionalism through an assault on their authority and credibility.

New Guests Crashing the Party: A Typology of Journalistic Collaboration

ABSTRACT This study examines the key factors involved when news work is done through collaboration. The author draws on two years of ethnographic observation, interviews and textual analysis in examining two collaborations, the Dallas Media Collaborative and the Credible Messenger Reporting Project, and assesses the variables at play when journalists work alongside groups outside the traditional journalistic field—including nonprofits, universities, think tanks, artistic groups, and citizen journalists. Building on existing literature, the study defines collaboration as a partnership among organizations, at least one of which is committed to traditional journalistic values (i.e., truth, verification, independence and public service). Drawing on the “hierarchy of influences,” it lays out variables that impact whether a collaboration is likely to challenge those values: the identities of the partners, the level of integration of the partners, and the extent of the partnership’s commitment in terms of time and scope. The findings suggest that, while inclusion of non-journalistic entities is important, the degree to which new kinds of partners are integrated into collaborative editorial processes ultimately determines whether they have the ability to transform the field. When they are highly integrated, the study argues, collaborations enable onetime “extramedia” influences to impact journalism at the organizational level.

Escape Me If You Can: How AI Reshapes News Organisations’ Dependency on Platform Companies

Platform companies play a crucial role in the creation, dissemination, and business of news. They are also central actors in artificial intelligence (AI) which has led some to argue that the increasing use of AI in journalism may heighten the news industry’s dependence on platform companies. This article evaluates this argument. Drawing on 121 interviews with news workers at 33 leading publishers in the US, UK, and Germany, as well as 31 expert interviews, and secondary material it finds that AI reshapes the dependency of publishers on platform companies by exacerbating existing dependencies in distribution and creating new dependencies in production. News organisations rely on platforms for AI for various reasons, such as high development costs, lack of resources, and varying visions over their mission. The findings show that while increasing dependence on platforms is acknowledged, there is disagreement over its extent and impact. The reliance on platforms’ AI shows isomorphic tendencies and potentially limits publishers’ autonomy.

“We are the In-betweeners”: Communicating the Expertise of Boundary Spanning Audience-Oriented Professionals in Media Organizations

ABSTRACT With the audience turn in journalism being actively embraced, media organizations are increasingly hiring audience-oriented experts. Drawing on interviews with 57 audience-oriented professionals working in 46 U.S. news organizations, this study situates audience-oriented roles as boundary spanning experts and aims to understand how they conceptualize engagement through job roles and routines and communicate the value of their expertise within the organization. The findings suggest that these individuals are faced with challenges of communicating their expertise to the various actors in news work, especially when faced with a paradox of adaptability to journalistic authority and institutional norms. These experts face structural challenges including continuous lack of understanding and acceptance of engagement experts within news organizations, despite the growing emphasis placed on audience engagement. Media organizations are internally resisting the expertise of these nominated boundary spanners by being bound to traditional institutional models of news production and promotion.

Autonomy in Local Digital News: An Exploration of Organizational and Moral Psychology Factors

ABSTRACT This mixed-methods study examines autonomy and shifts in the evolving digital news industry. Autonomous agency of news workers is an essential indicator of how journalism work is fulfilling its role as the Fourth Estate in American democracy. This work responds to calls in media ethics, media sociology and moral ecology to better understand how organizational structure and individual moral psychology factors influence the levels at which digital news workers exhibit autonomy within their digital news organizations. Using participant observation, a unique survey and respondent interviewing, I worked for one year with a digitally native hyper-local news organization to examine how organizational structure, leadership, socialization, and individual factors influenced autonomy levels in the staff. Results found overall high levels of autonomy in the editorial staff, but with many constraints such as financial pressures, perceived lack of time, a high pressure to perform multiple jobs and duties outside of the scope of typical legacy journalism job descriptions.

When Worlds Collide: Journalistic, Market, and Tech Logics in the Adoption of News Recommender Systems

ABSTRACT An increasing number of media organisations are adopting news recommender systems (NRS). Such algorithmic technologies, which prioritise content based on, for example, previous user behaviour or popularity metrics, may have far-reaching repercussions for news work. Despite this, the implications of NRS implementation for intra-organisational practices as well as dynamics and tensions between involved actors remain understudied. Against this background, this study examines decision-making processes and relationships between actors participating in NRS projects from an institutional logics perspective and places a particular emphasis on resulting tensions between journalistic, market, and tech logics. Drawing on 32 in-depth qualitative interviews with news media professionals across ten news organisations in the Netherlands and Switzerland, we discover a wide range of strategies which aim to reconcile logic multiplicity in the specific case of NRS development. Such negotiation efforts can ultimately promote new work practices and forms of collaboration but may also have broader implications for the distribution of power and voice within news organisations.

Straddlers not spiralists: Critical questions for research on fixers, local-foreign news work, and cross-border journalism

This article challenges current trends in the study of fixers and other forms of “local-foreign news work” through discussion of questions crucial to future investigations. Responding to Kotišová and Deuze’s call to complicate the existing “repertoire of concepts, theories, and epistemic categories” now in use in scholarship on fixing (2022: 1172), we provide theoretical frameworks relevant to, but thus far unutilized by, this scholarship. Considering local-foreign news work as a process of straddling political, cultural, and epistemic boundaries allows us to interrogate the conceptual binaries operating in the relevant research, such as west/nonwest, local/foreign, fixer/journalist. By engaging the liminality of local journalistic labor, this article brings into relief dynamics often obscured in current studies, namely, the impact of race and gender identities, and the post-colonial contexts within which much local-foreign news work takes place. Attention to these dynamics challenges the conceptual divisions upon which studies of cross-border journalism often rely, while revealing the consequential – and boundary-defying – positionality of local news workers. Finally, examination of the “cosmopolitanism” of local-foreign news work, and the “situatedness” of the knowledge produced by local news workers, serves to thicken scholarship on the topic in ways that deactivate essentialisms, deepen empirical foundations, and address problematic configurations of power critical to the study of news production today. By diversifying the research queries we pose, and the theoretical perspectives we employ, future research can better account for the dynamism of local-foreign news work in the contemporary global news landscape.

Journalism unions and digital platform regulation: a critical discourse analysis of submissions to Australia's News Media Bargaining Code

Journalism unions are among the chorus of voices advocating for digital platform regulation. Yet, despite the documented impacts of platformisation on working conditions and labour markets, few of the recent inquiries into platform power have addressed the impacts of platforms on labour. In this article, we ask: what is the role of labour unions in shaping digital platform regulation? As our case study, we analysed how Australia's journalism union (the MEAA) articulated the interests of news workers in submissions to the Digital Platform Inquiry and the resulting News Media Bargaining Code. Through a critical discourse analysis of the union's submissions, we found that the MEAA's lobbying efforts championed the interests of freelancers, advocated for a more inclusive Code, and sought guarantees that the revenue it generated would be used to pay for content creation. The MEAA used a range of discursive strategies, including seizing on ambiguity surrounding the definition of the policy problem and key actors. For the most part, the submissions aligned the union with the regulator, state and media companies in pursuit of platform regulation. However, the competing interests among this advocacy coalition became increasingly clear in the later stages of the policy-making process. Ultimately, the union's strategies were constrained by the hegemony of market-centric discourses that framed the inquiry and shaped the policy outcomes.

Peripheral News Workers’ Autonomy: The Case of a Czech Regional Television Newsroom

ABSTRACT In this article, we revisit some of the debates about changing journalistic labour that have first emerged when digital technologies became widely available in newsrooms. The terms multiskilling, deskilling, up-skilling and re-skilling have been applied in a variety of contexts and in a range of studies, but explorations of journalistic labour have tended to focus on core (news) workers. The de-skilling debate that originated in Braverman’s work continues to be relevant but we need a more nuanced approach to journalistic labour. Our case study addresses skills and changing work conditions in a regional Czech public service television newsroom and takes into account the experience of core as well as peripheral news workers. We conclude that camera reporters—those at the periphery of journalistic work—have faced the most detrimental loss of professional autonomy. We argue that a holistic approach to the core and the periphery of a newsroom helps us overcome some of the shortcomings of the conceptual variety of understandings of the journalistic field and the journalistic profession as well as the divergent definitions of skills involved in journalistic labour. Our case study is also important because it centres on under-researched public service media.