Marketing the construction of reality: Multiplatform production routines and the renegotiation of journalistic role identities in a legacy local television newsroom

Abstract

Times have changed since Warren Breed published his famous study, ‘Social Control in the Newsroom’. Today, corporate owners are requiring newsroom managers to adopt marketing strategies, launching many television newsrooms into routines similar to those of their newspaper-turned-online colleagues. This exploratory case study presents data from 6 months of observations of digital training in a legacy television newsroom, including interviews with the managers who underwent the training, conversations with newsroom staff, and a survey of that staff, all to explore how managers moderate between these corporate and journalistic needs by learning what corporations require as marketing-based multiplatform production routines and by helping journalists to reconcile their traditional role identities within these new newsroom requirements.

Keywords

digital news local television news multiplatform news production news routines newsroom ethnography

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abdenour

(2018) Study: Competition between TV Stations Spurs Investigative Journalism. Available at: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/study-competition-between-tv-stations-spurs-investigative-journalism.php

Agarwal

Barthel

(2013) The friendly barbarians: Professional norms and work routines of online journalists in the United States. Journalism 16(3): 376–391.

Altheide

Schneider

(2013) Qualitative Media Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Bagdikian

(2014) The New Media Monopoly: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition with Seven New Chapters. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Barthell

(2018) 5 Facts About the State of the News Media in 2017. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/21/5-facts-about-the-state-of-the-news-media-in-2017/

Belt

Just

(2008) The local news story: Is quality a choice? Political Communication 25(2): 194–215.

Blankenship

(2016) Losing their “mojo”? Mobile journalism and the deprofessionalization of television news work. Journalism Practice 10(8): 1055–1071.

Blankenship

Riffe

(2019) Follow the leader? Optimism and efficacy on solo journalism of local television journalists and news directors. Journalism Practice 1–22. DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2019.1695535.

Booth

Matic

(2011) Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(3): 184–191.

10.

Bossio

Holton

(2018) The identity dilemma: Identity drivers and social media fatigue among journalists. Popular Communication 16(4): 248–262.

11.

Breed

(1955) Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. Social Forces 33(4): 326–335.

12.

Bunce

(2019) Management and resistance in the digital newsroom. Journalism 20(7): 890–905.

13.

Carlson

(2017) Journalistic Authority: Legitimating News in the Digital Era. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

14.

Coddington

(2015) The wall becomes a curtain: Revisiting journalism’s news-business boundary. In: Carlson

Lewis

(eds) Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 67–82.

15.

Cottle

(2000) New(s) times: Towards a “second wave” of news ethnography. The European Journal of Communication Research 25(1): 19–41.

16.

Day

(2017) Investigating Emotional Resistance to Organizational Change: A Descriptive Qualitative Research Study of Local Television Newsroom Leaders. Doctoral Dissertation, City University of Seattle.

17.

Deuze

(2005) What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 6(4): 442–464.

18.

Deuze

Dimoudi

(2002) Online journalists in the Netherlands: Towards a profile of a new profession. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 3(1): 85–100.

19.

Dotson

(2015) Make it Memorable: Writing and Packaging TV News with Style. Chicago, IL: Bonus Books.

20.

Fishman

(1980) Manufacturing the News. Austin, TX: University Press.

21.

Gans

(1979) Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News. Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon.

22.

Gillin

(2007) The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media. Chicago, IL: Linden Publishing.

23.

Green

(2008) Transportation theory. In: Donsbach

(ed) International Encyclopedia of Communication. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 5170–5175.

24.

Hamilton

(2004) All the News that’s Fit To Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

25.

Hanitzsch

Vos

(2017) Journalistic roles and the struggle over institutional identity: The discursive constitution of journalism. Communication Theory 27(2): 115–135.

26.

Hellmueller

Vos

Poepsel

(2013) Shifting journalistic capital? Transparency and objectivity in the twenty-first century. Journalism Studies 14(3): 287–304.

27.

Henderson

(2019) The seriousness of storytelling: What constraints to professional news routines reveal about the state of journalistic autonomy in local television newsrooms. Journalism. DOI: 10.1177/1464884919854651.

28.

Henderson

Miller

(2014) Twitter’s role in the modern newsroom: Circumventing the gatekeepers and pounding the digital pavement. From Twitter to Tahrir Square 1(2): 612.

29.

Hermida

(2015) Nothing but the truth: Redrafting the journalistic boundary of verification. In: Carlson

Lewis

(eds) Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation. London: Routledge, pp. 37–50.

30.

IRE (2013) Can Investigative Journalism Save your Newsroom? Available at: https://www.ire.org/events-and-training/online-training/webinars/can-investigative-journalism-save-your-newsroom

31.

Kovach

Rosenstiel

(2014) The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

32.

Lafayette

(2019) Gray Completes Acquisition of Raycom Media. Available at: https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/gray-completes-acquisition-of-raycom-media

33.

Lang

Potter

Grabe

(2003) Making news memorable: Applying theory to the production of local television news. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47(1): 113–123.

34.

Lee

Tandoc

Jr (2017) When news meets the audience: How audience feedback online affects news production and consumption. Human Communication Research 43(4): 436–449.

35.

Lindlof

Taylor

(2002) Qualitative Communication Research Methods. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

36.

Littleton

(2018) Tribune Media to be Acquired by Nexstar Media Group. Available at: https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/tribune-media-acquired-nexstar-media-group-1203073621/

37.

Matsa

(2017) Buying Spree Brings more Local TV Stations to Fewer Big Companies. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/11/buying-spree-brings-more-local-tv-stations-to-fewer-big-companies/

38.

McElroy

(2019) Experimenting with interaction: TV news efforts to invite audiences into the broadcast and their effects on gatekeeping. Convergence 25(3): 449–465.

39.

McKean

Stone

(1992) Deregulation and competition: Explaining the absence of local broadcast news operations. Journalism Quarterly 69(3): 713–723.

40.

Mindich

(2000) Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism. New York: New York University Press.

41.

Molotch

Lester

(1974) News as purposive behavior: On the strategic use of routine events, accidents, and scandals. American Sociological Review 39(1): 101–112.

42.

Nesmith

(2016) TV Stations Fight ‘Sea of Sameness’ with Experimental Local News. Available at: https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/tegna.php

43.

Overbeck

Belmas

Shepard

(2015) Major Principles of Media Law. Nashville, TN: Nelson Education.

44.

Parsons

Johnson

III (1996) ProfNet: A computer-assisted reporting bridge to academia. Newspaper Research Journal 17(3–4): 29–38.

45.

Pavlik

(2000) The impact of technology on journalism. Journalism studies 1(2): 229–237.

46.

Perez

Cremedas

(2014) The multimedia journalist in large-market television newsrooms: Can old dogs learn new tricks? Do they want to? Electronic News 8(3): 159–176.

47.

Pew Research Center (2019) Nearly as Many Americans Prefer to Get Their Local News Online as Prefer the TV Set. Available at: https://www.journalism.org/2019/03/26/nearly-as-many-americans-prefer-to-get-their-local-news-online-as-prefer-the-tv-set/#local-tv-stations-remain-the-most-relied-on-individual-source-despite-having-little-online-presence

48.

Porcu

(2017). Exploring innovative learning culture in the newsroom. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism. DOI: 10.1177/1464884917724596.

49.

Reinardy

Bacon

(2014) Feast and famine? Local television news workers expand the offerings but say they are hungry for quality journalism. Journal of Media Practice 15(2): 133–145.

50.

Robinson

Metzler

(2016) Ethnography of digital news production. The SAGE Handbook of Digital Journalism. London: Sage, pp. 447–459.

51.

Rundlet

Gill

(2018) Beyond “Live at Five”: What’s Next for Local TV News? Available at: https://medium.com/informed-and-engaged/beyond-live-at-five-whats-next-for-local-tv-news-d72a15b427a

52.

Ryfe

(2009) Broader and deeper: A study of newsroom culture in a time of change. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 10(2): 197–216.

53.

Schudson

(1989) The sociology of news production. Media, Culture & Society 11(3): 263–282.

54.

Schudson

(2000) The sociology of news production revisited (again). Mass Media and Society 3(1): 175–200.

55.

Schudson

(2001) The objectivity norm in American journalism. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 2(2): 149–170.

56.

Seib

(2001) Going Live: Getting the News Right in a Real-time, Online World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

57.

Shoemaker

Vos

(2009) Gatekeeping Theory. New York: Routledge.

58.

Skovsgaard

(2014) Watchdogs on a leash? The impact of organisational constraints on journalists’ perceived professional autonomy and their relationship with superiors. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 15(3): 344–363.

59.

Strohecker

(2018) Local TV News’ Challenge of Attracting the Next Generation of Viewers. Available at: http://www.storybench.org/local-tv-news-challenge-attracting-next-generation-viewers/

60.

Tandoc

Jr Thomas

(2017) Readers value objectivity over transparency. Newspaper Research Journal 38(1): 32–45.

61.

Tandoc

Jr Vos

(2016) The journalist is marketing the news: Social media in the gatekeeping process. Journalism Practice 10(8): 950–966.

62.

Thomas

Cushion

(2019) Towards an institutional news logic of digital native news media? A case study of BuzzFeed’s reporting during the 2015 and 2017 UK general election campaigns. Digital Journalism 7(10): 1328–1345.

63.

Tompkins

(2017) Aim for the Heart: Write, Shoot, Report and Produce for TV and Multimedia. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

64.

Tuchman

(1978) Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press.

65.

Undurraga

(2017) Making news, making the economy: Technological changes and financial pressures in Brazil. Cultural Sociology 11(1): 77–96.

66.

White

(1950) The “gate keeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly 27(4): 383–390.

67.

Yan

Napoli

(2006) Market competition, station ownership, and local public affairs programming on broadcast television. Journal of Communication 56(4): 795–812.

68.

Yin

(2017) Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

69.

Zeller

Hermida

(2015) When tradition meets immediacy and interaction. The integration of social media in journalists’ everyday practices. Sur le journalisme, About journalism, Sobre jornalismo 4(1): 106–119.