Newsroom Culture

Newsroom culture refers to the assimilation of unwritten workplace rules and shared assumptions regarding values, beliefs and practices. Unlike climate, which can vary between organizations and change with each leader, newsroom culture is embedded into the customs and mores of the profession and evolves gradually. Culture is a sociological feature of all workplaces, a function of human interaction.

What makes newsroom culture significant is its influence on how news is defined and reported. Journalists have norms that govern behavior, such as acceptance of minor deceptions to obtain a story or uneven treatment of presidential candidates [Page 995]during primary elections based on who is deemed to have a chance of getting elected. Because these foun-dational beliefs are seldom articulated, journalists rarely discuss newsroom culture or acknowledge its influence on their everyday routines. Therefore, most writing about newsroom culture comes not from journalists, but from sociologists and academics studying workplace behavior, and analyzing the tension between autonomy and conformity.

The primary hallmarks of newsroom culture are competition and a situational ethic that justifies getting the story. Newsroom morale depends on competition. Television journalists measure their effectiveness by Nielsen ratings and celebrate the “get,” an exclusive interview. Long before websites and portable satellite uplinks enabled 24/7 news operations, journalists chased after breaking news and strove to beat competitors by minutes. Getting stories first also justifies inaccuracies; newsrooms generally believe it is better to report the story in a timely manner and get a few details wrong than it is to ensure every detail is accurate and get beaten. Competition also exists within organizations. Television's pay scales encourage an up-or-out career path in which journalists expect to stay at a station for no more than a year or two, build a demo tape and jump to a larger market—a competition that creates a newsroom culture with shallow geographic roots. Some newspapers pit starting journalists against each other in undesirable beats or less prestigious departments to see who will sink or swim. Such competitions reinforce the other enduring facet of newsroom culture, that the story trumps most other considerations. Journalists may debate the ethical ramifications of practices such as hidden cameras and weigh the potential harmful effects of a story, but they ultimately give the story itself preeminence, a thumb on the scales in favor of publication or broadcast. If the story is important, journalists feel little compunction about using stolen or leaked documents such as the Pentagon Papers, and so long as they themselves did not commit theft to get the documents. Newsrooms are factories designed to supply news for the next news show or edition and thus have an incentive to place the story ahead of other considerations.