Expendable or valuable?

This study explores the impact of organizational changes on newspaper photo departments, an area of newsrooms that have arguably been particularly affected by structural changes in the field of journalism Through qualitative interviews with editors responsible for photojournalism at five Swedish newspapers that have experienced recent changes to photo staffing and routines for the sourcing of images, the study explores the following questions: Which routines do the newspapers have for sourcing images, in terms of in-house staff and external sources? How do notions of visual quality and external factors, such as audiences and competition, contribute to shaping the newspapers’ visual strategies? Findings indicate that newspapers rely on staff photojournalists for unique and in-depth coverage, but less for routine and breaking news. A certain expansion of photojournalism was found in some newsrooms where it is seen as a competitive edge; which, in part, challenges a “discourse of doom.” Uncertainty about the support for visual strategies in newsrooms lacking visual leadership was also found.

Accepting automated news as “low-quality” journalism

This ethnographic case study explores how developers, editors, and reporters in two Norwegian newsrooms evaluate automated news and which logics underlie their assessments. Despite automation being described as the most disruptive data-centric practice of journalism, the observations and in-depth interviews show that all three groups define automated texts as journalism. At the same time, they characterize automated news as simplistic, lacking creativity and a critical approach, and argue that today’s machine-written texts are incapable of fulfilling central professional ideals such as critical scrutiny and advocating on behalf of the citizenry. Accepting automated news as journalism while simultaneously stressing its low quality shows a growing gap between what the newsroom groups are willing to accept because of organizational demands and what they ideally want journalism to be. The conflicting assessments may indicate financial motives gaining ground within Nordic media companies.

The colour-line of journalism

This article argues that Danish journalistic boundary producing practices and principles uphold a representation of racial disparity. Based on critical theories of race and racism in journalism and a boundary work framework, we conduct a discursive analysis of two collective case studies that encompass 56 articles and 23 Facebook posts. Focusing mainly on 1) the construction of knowledge about potential racism, 2) who are positioned as authorities on the topic of racism, and 3) who are missing among the potential actors in the stories, we identify meta-journalistic discourses and the (re)establishment of journalistic principles and practices. We conclude that journalistic norms and practices, for now, withstand the challenges posed by minority media’s call for the recognition of race as structure by applying discursive strategies of firstly rejecting racism as structure and secondly asserting principles and practices of specific kinds of objectivity, utilising, for instance, elite sources.

When journalists lose their foothold

The global #MeToo movement exposed the widespread structural problem of sexual harassment, which was also the case in Sweden and Norway. Across the various sectors of working life, women were able to identify with the call. This perspective, however, was under- mined in the public sphere when person-centred scandal stories about a few powerholders and media celebrities took over. In addition, a lack of verifiable documentation – and uncritical use of anonymous sources – ignited renewed debates about the ethical standards of professional journalism. This article discusses two alleged #MeToo cases: Aftonbladet’s dramatic and unfounded accusations against the theatre CEO Benny Fredriksson and VG’s misuse and manipulation of a “bar-dance” episode involving the Norwegian Labour politician Trond Giske. Both media stories developed into “critical incidents”, resulting in public criticism, self-examination and discussions around ethical rules and regulation.

Fortifying boundaries

This article examines how recent changes in the hybrid media environment have led media actors to define the “how and why” of their practices. We consider the discussion on the differences and similarities surrounding both the legacy media, and newcomers such as countermedia, to be part of journalism’s boundary work: the ongoing, yet temporally fickle, process of marking the boundaries between journalism and non-journalism. We demonstrate how both legacy and countermedia actors drew boundaries through vocabulary, institutional reflection, demarcation practices, and ethos. While the Finnish media underlined its institutional autonomy and dominance by defending the social good of journalism and dubbing countermedia as fake media, countermedia actor MV-lehti drew its own boundaries by ridiculing media professionals, media institutions, and journalists. Our findings illustrate how these actors consistently asserted the flawed ideological foundations of “the other”, with the consequence that boundaries have become fortified, rather than crossed or blurred.

Fabrication and erroneous information

This article analyzes news media scandals as critical incidents in journalism. A critical incident can be broadly understood as an event or development that reflects 'the hows and whys' of journalism. A part of the research into critical incidents studies these as occurrences that are made scandalous by journalistic misdeeds or ethical lapses. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, theoretically, to link this understanding of critical incidents to the study and theory of the scandal. Second, empirically, to analyze how different types of news media scandals lead to reflection and debate about journalism. To achieve this purpose, the article focuses on two specific types of news media scandals: the fabrication scandal and the erroneous information scandal. The two types of scandals bring into question fundamental standards and practices of journalism, such as 'telling the truth' and basing stories on 'facts.' They also lead to reflections on 1) increased competition between news media, 2) the pressure to produce more stories inside the individual newsroom, 3) the drive to get a 'scoop,' 4) journalism's relationship to powerful and/or anonymous sources, and 5) the problems of a 'trust, not supervise' culture in the newsroom.

“Ignorance is strength”

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Danish textual news satire constructs its social critique of the many Facebook users whose comments during COVID-19 imitate expert statements in disregard of authoritative health science statements. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, UNESCO has proclaimed a disinfodemic of emotive narrative constructs and pseudo-science on the internet and especially in social media. As with the ruling Party’s paradoxical slogan “ignorance is strength” in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, we sense a similar trend of the public disinfodemic, but studies of this paradox in satirical publications are scarce. Thus, the goal here is to scrutinize this enigma exemplified in an article in the Danish spoof news online media of RokokoPosten in which such experts are parodied in a kind of “doublethink” style which begs critical reflection on social media credibility. Hence, such textual news satire may potentially provide a vaccine against post-truth delusions of health science as it provides immunity against the disinfodemic by its own causative agents.