News Work Research Articles

Post-Publication Gatekeeping Factors and Practices: Data, Platforms, and Regulations in News Work

The gatekeeping literature has turned to look at the factors and practices that shape gatekeeping in the post-publication environment, i.e., after news has entered circulation. This article adds to the discussion and argues that news workers share gatekeeping power in the post-publication environment with audiences, platforms, and regulations. Further, this study extends the post-publication gatekeeping framework and considers it in the context of datafication. The article aims to broadly understand how (audience) data is part of editorial decision-making in news media from news workers’ perceptions. The current study was conducted by interviewing news workers from three Finnish news organisations. The interview data was analysed utilising qualitative iterative content analysis. Our analysis revealed that the use of (audience) data in news organisations increasingly shapes news workers’ journalistic decision-making processes. We found that news workers were ambivalent toward data (use) and that their reliance on platform data depended on the particular platform. Furthermore, when interviewed about journalism ethics, news workers only connected it with legislative issues, such as General Data Protection Regulation. Lastly, we could see that regulatory factors of data, i.e., legislation and media self-regulation, have power over news production and distribution. This study reflects how journalism (research) is shifting from an audience-centric view to a data-driven one, i.e., it is experiencing a <em>data turn</em>.

Journalism Ethics for the Algorithmic Era

In an era characterized by the widespread use of algorithmic systems and platforms in news production and distribution practices, the ethical practices of journalists face significant challenges. Drawing on Floridi’s onlife framework, this study aims to shed light on journalist-machine interactions and explores new ways to rearchitect journalism ethical standards through an integrative, object-oriented approach. In-depth interviews with local news workers throughout the U.S. reveal a range of issues related to decontextualization in algorithmic platform design, the hidden price of platform partnerships, and the growing reliance on automated tools that foreshadow ethical issues to come. These algorithmically-induced challenges appear to be particularly pronounced in local newsrooms, highlighting the disproportionate impact of algorithmic systems on under-served media sectors. Discussions are made around the constant push-and-pull over editorial power dynamics apparent in local news workers’ use of algorithmic systems. A distributed responsibility model is proposed as a practical way to hold multiple actors, including both humans and algorithms, accountable for journalism’s ethical standards in the algorithmic era.

Freedom of Expression, Dissent & Unionism among Journalists in a Regional Language Television Industry in India

ABSTRACT Though journalistic labour in India has constantly been evolving, news workers’ issues and concerns remain a relatively less addressed area. As a result, the democratic rights of the news workers in their working atmosphere have also not been addressed. In this context, this study explores the labour condition of television news workers in privately-owned native language news channels in the southern state of Kerala. The in-depth interviews with the working journalists, the former employees, and the office bearers of major journalists’ trade unions help to analyse to what extent the news workers have the freedom to express their dissent inside their organisation. The study found that the profit-oriented restructuring in the technology and labour process has embarked on far-reaching labour issues, which points to holistic problems that undermine the basic tenets of journalism and human rights. The issues such as weakened editorial boards, the inclusion of marketing representatives in the editorial, and the direct intervention by the management are destroying a democratic atmosphere in the newsroom. These scenarios intensify other democratic issues, such as the individual freedom of a journalist to express their dissent in the workspace.

Exploring News Innovations, Journalistic Routines, and Role Perceptions during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Egyptian Journalists

ABSTRACT Drawing on in-depth interviews with 21 Egyptian journalists, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic has reconfigured news work and journalistic routines in Egyptian newsrooms. In so doing, the paper examines the various technical and logistical challenges encountered by Egyptian journalists as well as their changing role perceptions during the emergency health crisis. It further investigates the innovative practices adopted by newsrooms, on both the news content and newsroom levels, to overcome those challenges in terms of sourcing norms, news production routines, and storytelling formats. Findings demonstrate that Egyptian journalists struggled at the beginning of the pandemic, but started to find creative solutions to overcome the many practical and infrastructural challenges. The pandemic accelerated the digitization of editorial news production systems and the unprecedented adoption of news automation and artificial intelligence technologies. More dependence on interactive digital storytelling formats and data visualization tools was reported. Journalistic innovation occurred therefore as recombination of already existing products or services, but not new inventions. In terms of role perception, there was a shift to a more facilitative role, in which science and more quantitatively oriented forms of journalism play a central role.

“Platformization of News”, Authorship, and Unverified Content: Perceptions around Local Media

In recent years, the growing importance of platforms for producing, sharing, and consuming news has been evident. However, several challenges associated with this growth have emerged, such as those linked with disinformation and news authorship. In this article, which uses part of the data from a more extensive study of local media in the central region of Portugal, we present the results from three focus groups with editors, journalists, and local media consumers. Through this information, we try to understand their perceptions about how platforms change news work and distribution, affecting journalists and the public. The focus groups results showed that although local media professionals consider it essential to be present on distribution platforms, they are concerned about the inability of audiences to distinguish the content created by local media from others that circulate online. We believe the results presented are significant to reflect on changes made by platforms to journalism and to think in terms of new strategies of media literacy concerning how and what ways platforms are involved in news distribution infrastructures.

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

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.

The American Newsroom: A History, 1920–1960

The American newsroom was a major force and institution in the United States throughout the twentieth century and part of any journalist's daily life. But most civilians have seldom been in a newsroom, and the only reference most have comes from popular culture, primarily film and television. Will Mari's fascinating book gives anyone a definitive glimpse into not only the physical environment so important to any news operation but also the emotional, professional, and strategic aspects of a “storied gathering spot for news workers … where journalists gathered together, fostering a relational newsroom culture, where values and routines were learned from peers and the terms of work negotiated with superiors” (p. 3). Even if this book was just a recitation of the work in a newsroom from 1920 to 1960, it would still be an interesting addition to the history of journalism. But Mari does much more than that. He paints a picture of the newsroom as far more than a physical workplace by illustrating, through diligent research and a variety of examples, how the newsroom was a complex and aspirational “context, within which American journalism formed” (p. 235). He chronicles the “web of relationships—the centering place for those relationships, a place where a confusing mass of reality was condensed into processed, produced news and distributed to the reading public” (ibid.). His book is filled with stories about the various news workers living in communities collaborating and competing to produce the news: copyboys, copygirls, photographers, reporters, and their junior and senior peers as well as their editors. In chapters about technology and unionization, he shows how both influenced the American newsroom and brought the United States into the twenty-first-century information economy. His material on how the newsroom changed from a blue-collar to a white-collar environment explains a good deal about the kind of news citizens heard about from 1920 to 1960. And Mari's comments on the racism of the century, which permeated any American institution, including the newsroom, do not go unnoticed.

Now Hiring Social Media Editors

ABSTRACT Social Media Editors (SME) are involved in digital news circulation, engagement with online audiences, and the analysis and circulation of audience data. This article extends research on SMEs to investigate how employers make sense of these positions and the roles they are required to perform within news organizations. To do so, we analyze job listings for SMEs posted by US news companies in combination with interviews with SMEs. Employers play a significant role in defining journalism as a profession, and job announcements are indicative of how managers envisage journalism roles. Our findings suggest that, although employers explicitly seek candidates with journalism backgrounds, the most common job requirements for SMEs are more closely aligned with marketing skills and tasks than traditional news work. Further, our interviews indicate ways in which SMEs are maneuvering to redefine their positions in ways that better meet their professional goals. SMEs are pushing to assume higher-level and more strategic roles by moving away from comment moderation and direct social media audience engagement. The boundaries of the SME position are thus under constant negotiation within the newsroom and between journalists and their employers.

How online collaboration software shapes control at work? Evidence from news organizations

PurposeOnline collaboration software (OCS), such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, has become widespread among news organizations as these tools help news workers collaborate across different locations and make communication more efficient inside newsrooms. While such technologies are increasingly employed as teamwork productivity boosters, the authors’ knowledge of their potential role in shaping control mechanisms and power dynamics within news work is limited. This paper addresses how different types of control may emerge within virtual newsrooms being operated by OCS. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs an interview-based qualitative method and provides evidence gathered from 20 interviews with digital journalists and media managers representing 11 online news media in Switzerland.FindingsThe findings reveal how OCS could lead to various control mechanisms in the workplace by directing, evaluating and disciplining journalists in specific ways. This study suggests that while OCS can be valuable in boosting collaborations among news staff, it might create a situation where journalists are less able to focus on their work and creative activities. Most importantly, OCS bolsters an “always-on” work culture in news media and removes obstacles for employers and managers to invade journalists' space, time and mind.Originality/valueBy focusing on three aspects of control mechanisms, including direction, evaluation and discipline, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the role of OCS in shaping control and power dynamics within news media organizations.

Social Media Monitoring Apps in News Work: A Mixed-Methods Study of Professional Practices and Journalists’ and Citizens’ Opinions

Social Media Monitoring Apps in News Work: A Mixed-Methods Study of Professional Practices and Journalists’ and Citizens’ Opinions

How Journalists Cope with News Work’s Stresses While Remaining Creative Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study

ABSTRACTWork stress is a double-edged sword to creativity. Some analysts call stress a creativity killer while others describe it as a creativity driver. Journalists face a myriad of daily work stresses that forces them to establish a coping mechanism that could evolve over time. The Covid-19 pandemic is a new problem in itself and has also brought new challenges to the daily work stresses of journalists. This phenomenological study, anchored on the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, had explored the changes in 13 Filipino journalists’ work stresses and coping mechanisms and how these developments affected their creative processes during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study yielded six themes that described the changes in journalists’ work stressors and their coping mechanisms, as well as the reasons behind their attempt to remain creative despite the stressful nature of the profession. The study also puts forward a definition of daily work stress in journalism and establishes an inventory of identified work stresses under the “new normal.” Study findings will help newsrooms adopt and implement necessary measures that would ease their employees’ negative stressors, while improving the work environment to induce creativity through positive stressors.

Exploring small newspaper attitudes to a collaborative approach with Australia’s primary public broadcaster (ABC)

Collaborative approaches to news production are increasingly being trialled across the globe in an attempt to alleviate a well-documented crisis in local news. Of particular interest to Australian policy-makers is the BBC Local Democracy Reporting project which funds journalists to be based in local news outlets to provide local government reporting, as well as data journalism initiatives. There is political will that such an approach could be adopted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to support the nation’s rural and regional news provisions. This article draws on data from six interpretive focus groups involving 50 news workers from independent Australian local news publishers to consider whether smaller publishers would welcome a collaborative approach with the ABC. It finds that a one-size-fits-all collaborative approach is unlikely to be suitable for the Australian regional media landscape and that more work is needed developing an understanding of an appropriate framework that may be tailored to best meet the needs of different local news outlets.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

Organizational and Occupational Innovation when Implementing a Covid-19 Live Tracker in VG Newsroom

ABSTRACT Academic research on whether and how innovation during crises results in durable changes in practice remains scant. The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it new opportunities to look at both innovation and transformations in news work during coverage of the breaking news or monster stories related to it. Through semi-structured qualitative interviews at three different times during the pandemic lock down year of 2021, we engaged with a core group (or “heavyweight team”) of editorial managers, digital managers, and an editor-in-chief to generate unique data on this topic. For this inquiry, we enjoyed unique access to the Schibsted-owned VG newsroom in Norway, which was already known for its innovative means of handling disruptive changes and improving practices and routines. Our findings related to VG's Covid-19 Live Tracker initiative in particular suggest that occupational and organizational discourses of professionalism work together to produce altered roles and tasks, empowered interdepartmental teams, and ultimately the trust of both the audience and the authorities.

“It’s a Battle You Are Never Going to Win”: Perspectives from Journalists in Four Countries on How Digital Media Platforms Undermine Trust in News

ABSTRACT The growing prominence of platforms in news consumption has raised scholarly concerns about potential impacts on trust in news, which has declined in many countries. However, less is known about how journalists themselves perceive this relationship, which matters for understanding how they use these technologies. In this paper, we draw on 85 interviews with news workers from four countries in both the Global North and South to examine journalists’ narratives—as metajournalistic discourse—about how platforms impact trust in news. We find that practitioners across all environments express mostly critical ideas about platforms vis-à-vis trust on two different levels. First, they describ platforms as disruptive to journalistic practices in ways that strain traditional norms on which trust is based. Second, they discuss platforms as altering the contexts in which journalistic texts and discourses about journalism circulate, weakening the profession’s authority. Despite these reservations, most continue relying on platforms to reach audiences, highlighting the complex choices they must make in an increasingly platform-dominated media environment. As discourses connecting journalistic practice and meaning, these narratives speak to tensions within journalism as a profession around appropriate norms and practices, and challenges to the profession’s claims to authority.

Journalistic Product Personnel as Cultural Entrepreneurs: An Exploration of Background, Tenureship, and Knowledge Skills

ABSTRACT Product innovation within institutional journalism has become an increasingly apparent strategy for news organizations to form and maintain audience interest and economic stability. The common desire for product innovation to be a fiscal savior ultimately challenges internal boundaries of professions. This is particularly apparent as the product innovation field within the news industry expands and blurs institutional logics. To explore the ways product personnel challenge and contribute to the shifting boundaries of journalism, this research draws on content analysis data from top national U.S. print newspaper organizations’ LinkedIn member profiles. The research provides a more nuanced understanding of the shifting and conflicting logics of journalism through laborer backgrounds and experiences regarding product and innovation. It applies cultural entrepreneurship and conflicting institutional logic concepts to argue these news workers introduce knowledge skillsets and are reshaping the profession of journalism.

Professional Ideals of Data Journalists Around the Globe: Congruencies and Divergences Between Role Conceptions and Narrated Role Performances

ABSTRACT This study combined an online survey with data journalists from 62 countries with content analysis of Global Editors Network Data Journalism Awards entries to explore and compare normative role conceptions and narrated role performance of these specialized type of news workers. The results reveal that political and audience-centric professional roles assume the same centrality in data journalists’ normative frameworks around the world. We detected a congruency in role conceptions and narrated role performances related to the civic role, but a discrepancy between the two ideals when examining the watchdog role. Contrary to how data journalism has been associated with objectivity, this study found that advocacy is a prominent professional role in the normative and performative compass of data journalists. Factors that influence the idealized professional roles of data journalists are critically discussed within the framework of journalistic awards scholarship and cross-national work.

(Electronic) Mailing the Editor: Emails, Message Boards and Early Interactive Web Design in the 1990s

In the mid-to-late 1990s, readers reacted to journalistic accounts of the world around them, from sending emails to posting to message boards on newspaper sites. Some of these practices, especially positive suggestions of sources and conversations with reporters, represent an earlier time’s web-optimism, now perhaps lost. This article will explore how design practices, including integrated forums, tabs, indexes and other early site design conventions—sometimes intentional, sometimes not— led to the first generation of online interactions between readers and news workers in the United States, and, to some degree, in the United Kingdom and Canada. This project will explore examples of in-situ design hopes surrounding these early digital connections, and why and how some of that enthusiasm failed to make it into the 2000s and beyond.

Work underway to develop new BVA policy positions

BVA currently has three working groups that are developing positions on very different but important topics. Here's an update on their progress from the policy team.

Application of User Generated Content by Television News’ during Pandemic

The revolution of technology has always shaped the works of journalism, including the news content and its relationship with the public. Along with the digital era, people started to participate in and contribute to journalism. User Generated Content (UGC) has regularly altered both information flows and the nature of news work for the mainstream media. By conducting a qualitative content analysis, this study tries to examine the use of UGC by 24-hour news TV channels in Indonesia in relation to the context of participatory journalism in the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The results of this study indicate that four 24-hour TV news channels in Indonesia are beginning to negotiate most of their ‘professional logic’ towards the logic of ‘adaptation’. Overall, framing analysis shows that news TV stations’ use of UGC has not optimally encouraged more constructive pandemic journalism practices.