Wearing many hats: How rural U.S. newspaper journalists negotiate professional identity amid digital and economic disruption

Abstract

Our study seeks to interrogate how local journalists conceptualize professionalism and negotiate their professional role-identities amid economic and technological disruption. Based on 17 in-depth interviews, we found that journalists idealized journalistic values such as objectivity, accuracy, and community service. However, job insecurity, lack of resources, increased workload, inability of their organizations to keep up with the changing nature of journalism in the emerging digital media landscape, and juggling different responsibilities in their organizations, shaped their professional experiences and routines. Our participants also noted that the traditional separation between editorial and marketing departments in their organizations had evaporated or shrunk, although most viewed collaboration between these departments as necessary for organizational survival rather than a threat to journalistic autonomy. The findings highlight how organizational culture and economic instability are reshaping professional identities and journalistic practices in rural news environments. Based on the findings of our study, we suggest ways in which news organizations, journalism schools, and local press associations could help local newspapers.