Breaking news production processes in US metropolitan newspapers: Immediacy and journalistic authority
Open Access
- 28 January 2017
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journalism
- Vol. 19 (1), 21-36
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916689151
Abstract
Incremental updates to breaking news stories online have become embedded in newspapers in the 24/7 online era. This article reviews four US metropolitan newspapers, using field observations and interviews to examine how journalists choose breaking news stories and their rationale for these continuous updates. Specifically, the article explores the connection between temporality and authority, positing that journalists use these updates to retain their role as authoritative truth-tellers in relation to audiences, the competition, and their own position in the profession. As newspaper coverage becomes more like local TV, these metropolitan newspaper journalists worry that a breaking news strategy, while potentially necessary, is also questionable and even potentially harmful, but nonetheless pursue it.Keywords
This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit:
- AL JAZEERA ENGLISH ONLINEDigital Journalism, 2013
- Between creative and quantified audiences: Web metrics and changing patterns of newswork in local US newsroomsJournalism, 2011
- The immediacy of online news, the visibility of journalistic processes and a restructuring of journalistic authorityJournalism, 2011
- FREEZING THE FLOW OF ONLINE NEWSJournalism Studies, 2010
- THE THIRST TO BE FIRSTJournalism Practice, 2009
- THE HIERARCHY OF JOURNALISTIC CULTURAL AUTHORITYJournalism Practice, 2009
- BLOGS AND JOURNALISTIC AUTHORITYJournalism Studies, 2007
- CONTESTED AUTONOMYJournalism Studies, 2007
- An Immature MediumInternational Communication Gazette, 2005
- Convergence: News Production in a Digital AgeThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2005