Making News at The New York Times is the first in-depth portrait of
the nation's, if not the world's, premier newspaper in the digital
age. It presents a lively chronicle of months spent in the newsroom
observing daily conversations, meetings, and journalists at work.
We see Page One meetings, articles developed for online and print
from start to finish, the creation of ambitious multimedia
projects, and the ethical dilemmas posed by social media in the
newsroom. Here, the reality of creating news in a 24/7 instant
information environment clashes with the storied history of print
journalism, and the tensions present a dramatic portrait of news in
the online world. This news ethnography brings to bear the
overarching value clashes at play in a digital news world. The book
argues that emergent news values are reordering the fundamental
processes of news production. Immediacy, interactivity, and
participation now play a role unlike any time before, creating
clashes between old and new. These values emerge from the social
practices, pressures, and norms at play inside the newsroom as
journalists attempt to negotiate the new demands of their work.
Immediacy forces journalists to work in a constant deadline
environment, an ASAP world, but one where the vaunted traditions of
yesterday's news still appear in the next day's print paper.
Interactivity, inspired by the new user-computer directed
capacities online and the immersive Web environment, brings new
kinds of specialists into the newsroom, but exacts new demands upon
the already taxed workflow of traditional journalists. And at time
where social media presents the opportunity for new kinds of
engagement between the audience and media, business executives hope
for branding opportunities while journalists fail to truly interact
with their readers.