Newsroom Integration as an Organizational Challenge: Approaches of European PSM From a Comparative Perspective

• In Event: Digital Technologies in the Newsroom: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

We examine how and why public service media (PSM) in a strategic sample of six European countries (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom) have integrated or are integrating their newsrooms in order to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment. Based on 68 interviews over two years with senior editors and managers, this study constitutes the largest comparative analysis of newsroom change among PSM organizations conducted to date. Our empirical analysis shows that full newsroom integration, in which editorial production is no longer primarily organized by media platform, remains the exception in this sector. Our findings suggest that centralizing online news under a single operational roof — only recently undertaken and still incomplete at several PSM — is a necessary first step to more thorough editorial reorganization across platforms. Our qualitative data also shed light on the complex ways that internal and external variables combine to shape organizational change.

Authors

• Annika Sehl, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

• Alessio Cornia, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

• Lucas Graves, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism