Nothing routine: Television news management's response to COVID-19, organizational uncertainty, and changes in news work

Abstract

COVID-19 has impacted television news routines and created organizational challenges that required re-organization of journalism work (Wood, 2020). This shift created considerable uncertainty for news creation. Some of the journalistic professional values such as information gathering, interaction with sources, news judgment, information verification, proximity, human connections (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014) were applied in a different way. These shifts also affected news quality. Media sociology is the study of the forces that influence news content. This study focuses on Shoemaker and Reese’s (2014) hierarchical influence model primarily with regard to COVID’s impact at organizational and routine levels. The purpose of this study is to explore the virus’s impact on news work (organizational and routines), and management’s organizational responses toward journalism quality. The study includes in-depth interviews with broadcast news managers (news directors) in the southern Midwest of the U.S. (n = 13). The results of the study indicate the virus’s impact creates more horizontal (less hierarchical) and multilayered influences on news content. The pandemic is a macro-level influence and above the hierarchy of the influence model. It has hit everywhere. Yet, the data in this study suggest its influence on news is fluid, flowing up and down among organizational, routine, and individual levels.