Item Type |
Journal paper
|
Abstract |
Confronted by increased internal and external complexity, traditional forms of newswork have reached their limits. Journalistic start-ups, such as Quartz and NZZ.at, form emerging editorial teams around "obsessions" or "phenomena" to gain cross-beat perspectives of complex issues such as climate change, the financial crisis or the refugee crisis. Legacy media experimenting with cross-beat newswork see themselves confronted by challenges arising predominantly from beat structures. Consequently, this paper focuses on an example of cross-beat teamwork at a major Swiss daily newspaper, investigating the journalists' experiences of working in a particular project. Insights from 13 interviews indicate that a matrix organisation is one way to organise cross-beat topic-focused newswork in larger newsrooms. A matrix organisation combines traditional functional hierarchy (i.e. the beat structure) with a project dimension. Based on insights from organisational studies, I compare the known advantages and disadvantages of a matrix organisation with journalists' experiences and derive implications for the introduction and design of a matrix organisation in newsrooms. |
Authors |
Grubenmann, Stephanie |
Journal or Publication Title |
Journalism Practice |
Language |
English |
Keywords |
complexity, cross-beat teamwork, editorial structures, matrix organisation, newswork |
Subjects |
business studies |
HSG Classification |
contribution to scientific community |
Refereed |
No |
Date |
9 February 2016 |
Publisher |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis |
Place of Publication |
Abingdon |
Number |
online first publication |
Page Range |
1-19 |
ISSN |
1751-2786 |
ISSN-Digital |
1751-2794 |
Publisher DOI |
https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2016.1140588 |
Depositing User |
Dr. Stephanie Grubenmann
|
Date Deposited |
10 Feb 2016 13:46 |
Last Modified |
20 Jul 2022 17:27 |
URI: |
https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/publications/247286 |