Will journalism be undermined by the loss of physical newsrooms? asks Conrad Landin


hether it’s because of the grotty state of the kitchen, staplers flung by irate editors or the personal hygiene of a colleague, most journalists will have a clear memory of their first day in the newsroom. On work experience,


many (like me) will recall sitting in silence pretending to look busy or being ignored in the tea run – before realising it’s because you were supposed to be the one making it. But perhaps no longer. In March 2021, Reach announced


that the “new normal” of pandemic home working would become permanent. Staff were instructed to work from home, and dozens of newspaper offices in smaller towns would close. Staff in East Anglia who wanted to work in an office would have to commute to London; for the East Midlands, the nearest outpost would be in Birmingham. Reach said this would increase flexibility while allowing people to collaborate face to face and provide a social element.


Collective power under threat


THERE are clear benefits to working from home, including significant savings in both the costs of commuting and the time it takes. The Office for National


Statistics survey in February 2022 reported that 78 per cent of home workers said being able to work from home improved their work-life balance. Just eight per cent thought there were no advantages. According to a recent


Financial Times column by Tim Harford, “most of the people working from home are no longer doing so out of caution or social responsibility”, but are “doing


14 | theJournalist


it because they like it”. That ignores the fact that


many businesses – media organisations among them – have moved to home working to save on office overheads. Workers themselves don’t


always have a choice, and - if no home working allowance is offered - end up footing the bill for costs previously covered by their employer. Whether it’s intentional or


not, home working also provides new challenges for union organisers. Alan Jones, who as well


as covering the world of work was formerly chapel father at PA, says: “There’s no


question it’s harder [to organise people]. I’m not sure it’s made a lot of difference to the bigger unions – they’ve still got access to the workplaces, they still hold meetings – but I’d say, for a lot of unions, it’s made it much more difficult, definitely.” During strikes, employers are likely to encourage


Kill the newsroom W


The concepts of newspaper headquarters and newsrooms


have been central to journalism almost since its inception. From shop-front reception desks for tip-offs and ad sales to the mentoring of new recruits, the spatial geography of the newspaper office has been key to its function in society. So can news survive without the newsroom? Office closures have been a running theme of local news for


some years but, for many media organisations, the pandemic provided a catalyst to close or scale down their offices. Glasgow’s Herald and other Newsquest titles moved out of


their city centre HQ with no replacement while independent publications – the Morning Star and New Internationalist among them – found that home working cut overheads and allowed recruitment beyond commuting distance. In their book, ‘Newspaper Building Design and Journalism


Cultures in Australia and the UK: 1855-2010’, Carole O’Reilly and Josie Vine present a colourful, considered assessment of what we might be losing. They connect the death of the newsroom to the “so-called de-professionalisation of the journalism industry”. Journalism cannot be taught, they argue and, until recently, its “subcultural values and beliefs were imparted in the raucous,


strikebreaking journalists to work from home, limiting both the effectiveness of pickets and the chapel’s ability to assess the situation. Many NUJ chapels have


quickly adapted to the new reality, holding virtual or hybrid meetings and recruiting new members individually. But the decline of the


newsroom has the potential to seriously hurt the collective identity of journalists, which can be a significant factor in the success of union campaigns. Traditional newsrooms


offered, not only a space for meeting and mentoring, but also an alternative locus of power to the executive offices upstairs, known as Mahogany


Row in the Australian newsrooms discussed by O’Reilly and Vine. As newsrooms have contracted, editorial staff, advertising salespeople and management have often found themselves sharing open-plan offices. Virtual working can offer


rebellious spaces too, and could even embolden staff to speak to colleagues about their conditions without management surveillance. But journalists should be


cautious of using company hardware and software, including work email addresses and Slack channels, to organise. It is safer to establish alternative online channels and opt for verbal communications – by phone, for instance – where possible.


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