From One-Man Band to Integrated Newsroom

Abstract

The study provides a historical inquiry into online journalism newsroom arrangements in the context of the Slovenian media environment. The author concentrates on two leading Slovenian newspapers, Delo and Dnevnik, and explores spatial organisation, editorial decision-making and news-making routines by adopting three qualitative methods: observation, interviews and document analysis. The study shows that online journalism at respective newspapers developed through three phases: (1) from one-man bands where individual online staffers performed as multifunctional all-rounders having the technical tasks of shovelling print content online (mid-1990s to early 2000s); (2) through organisationally and spatially separate online departments where standardisation of news-making routines was mainly defined by the principle of speed (mid-2000s to late 2000s); and (3) to newsroom integration with distinct models of decision-making, spatial organisation and print–online relations (late 2000s onwards).

KEYWORDS:

• editorial decision-making
• history
• news-making routines
• newsroom online journalism
• Slovenia
• spatial organisation