Changing Journalistic Information-Gathering Practices? Reliability in Everyday Information Gathering in High-Speed Newsrooms

Abstract

It is generally assumed that the journalists’ strive for reliability of information is taken over by the increased need for speed in today’s newsrooms. However, little empirical evidence supports that assumption. This study explores how journalists in high-speed newsrooms gather information, how gathering activities are temporally structured and how reliability manifests itself in information-gathering activities. Data were collected through micro-observations of information-gathering activities of individual journalists in eight Dutch newsrooms, with a variety of professional practices and temporal affordances. Analysis of these micro-observations suggests that journalists’ striving to achieve reliability manifests in recurring checking and completing activities. The temporal structuring of information-gathering practices is, partly due to the story-driven character of news work, loose, multi-serial and often non-linear. The findings suggest that the assumed augmented tension between reliability and immediacy needs rethinking, at least with regard to everyday information-gathering practices. Even in high-speed newsrooms, immediacy is not as omnipresent as presumed and, although on occasion postponed, reliability is approached in a ‘classic' manner.