New rhythms, new rules: time and work in the digital newsroom

Popular depictions of newspaper journalists and their workplace abound in public imagination, through books, film, and television. They give us images of journalists doggedly pursuing a story, working to hit the deadline to get tomorrow’s front page.

But digitalisation has changed much of that for journalists. It is transforming their experience of time - altering working norms, patterns, and the rhythm of the newsroom. It is precisely this topic – the new temporalities in the newsroom and how they have been navigated – that I explore in my article ‘Digitalizing Newspaper Journalism: Instituting and Negotiating New Temporalities in the Digital Workplace’.

The shift from industrial to digital time has ushered in many changes to the way we work. Easily recognisable examples of that are the workplace extending its physical boundaries from the office to the home or shifting working hours – not necessarily becoming longer but sometimes becoming more disjointed.

That is not to say, though, that changes are universal for all areas of work, or that there is an inevitability to the way digital transformation shapes our working lives. We still have agency and influence, which journalists can and do deploy.   

I explored this topic using and developing the concept of ‘temporal structuring’ (a way of understanding time as something produced and shaped within organisations) as advocated by Orlikowski and Yates, drawing on a case study (interviews and observations) of journalists in a London-based broadsheet newsroom which was going through digital transformation between 2015-16.

Fragmented time

My case study found that ‘time’ in the newsroom has become fragmented since the removal of the print deadline, and that the resulting increase of rolling deadlines has made the development of new temporal structures - new routines and rhythms to organise work - essential to getting the job done.

The loss of a single unifying print deadline has created expectations of continual timeliness and supported the rise of new formats such as live blogging.

In addition, data analytics and the focus on maximising web traffic also shape the relationship between journalists and time: publication is no longer the endpoint, as stories are monitored and often updated, revived, and re‑worked in response to audience data.

New formats and digital pressure

Digitalisation has also reshaped journalistic work more broadly. Journalists now use new content‑management systems, operate within the demands of a 24/7 news cycle, and rely on an increased use of social media and mobile apps for sourcing and distributing stories.

As a result of these changes, journalists’ working days have become increasingly time‑oriented rather than story- or task‑oriented.

Restoring order through routine

Journalists have developed new routines to restore predictability - adhering more strictly to shift times, coordinating handovers more deliberately, and using publishing tools to manage workload and limit long or antisocial hours.

Changes brought about by digitalisation have also pushed journalists to actively re‑establish a sense of order. Unlike many occupations where digital time pressures are imposed from above, journalists are able to draw on long‑standing professional autonomy to rebuild linear, synchronous routines that helped stabilise their working day.

Social negotiation

This re‑organisation of time is shaped not only by newsroom demands but also in response to industrial bargaining. The standard working day served as a cornerstone in union negotiations with management, limiting attempts to extend the hours journalists might be scheduled to work.

While digitisation required significant changes to newsroom spaces, practices, and norms, the new temporal arrangements that emerged were shaped just as much through social negotiation via a union-led dialogue with management, and collaborative problem‑solving, such as developing new work routines and planning content for social media, as through technological demands generated by analytics tools, news spikes and audience behaviour patterns.

The temporal structures journalists created were intentional, sometimes contested, and collectively developed as a way of restoring stability.

The sustainability of digital journalism