TRANSLATING THE TOWER OF BABEL?

Abstract

This study sought to determine how convergence is defined by the journalists involved and to identify areas where news operations that adopt convergence encounter language- and culture-based challenges. It draws on the developing literature of convergence and interviews with journalists and managers working at two convergence partnerships: the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV in Tampa, Florida, and the Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV in Phoenix, Arizona. The research, based in the Shoemaker and Reese theory of a hierarchy of influences on media content, showed that convergence was redefined in Phoenix, creating a less-integrated “co-(re)-recreating” model not previously described in the literature. In addition, it demonstrated that though language differences do not hamper convergence cooperation, different broadcast and print newsroom cultures can prove detrimental.

Keywords:

• convergence
• newsroom culture
• broadcasting
• newspaper
• journalism
• language

Notes

1. This work concentrates on television–print cross-media convergence efforts for two reasons. First, multimedia collaborations involving radio news, though not unheard of, have not been in the forefront of convergence efforts. Second, of the three media involved in most convergence efforts—print, television, and Internet—print and television have had more time to develop and nurture specific languages and cultures than has online journalism and, thus, might be expected to be the site of more contention.

2. This has been an especially important issue in the United States. In June 2005, the US Supreme Court rejected media companies’ requests that it review a lower-court ruling that had thrown out Federal Communications Commission rules that relaxed restrictions on media cross-ownership (Associated Press, 2005).

3. The authors—a former newspaper reporter and editor and a former broadcast reporter/producer—hoped to return in 2005 to all the journalists who participated in a 2002 pilot study that included interviews with academics and industry observers also. Several of the journalists, however, had left the news organizations or switched to assignments in which they were no longer on the front lines of convergence. In addition, the authors were unable to schedule further interviews with staff members at KPNX-TV in Phoenix. Although some staff members were willing to be interviewed, the station's news director would not give permission for the interviews. So, to gain further perspective on Gannett's view of convergence, the researchers interviewed a former KPNX producer and the general manager of a Gannett station in another market, who had been a news director and a corporate broadcast news executive for the company and is fostering convergence in her market.

4. The Media General website stated in 2005: “By bringing together the unique strengths of newspapers, television and the Web, we can give our customers a much higher-quality product than they could obtain from just one medium … which, in turn, brings new revenues”. In fact, circulation rose at the Tribune between 2002 and 2005, climbing from 224,921 to 238,743 Monday through Saturday and 298,623 to 315,407 on Sundays, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

5. As Gannett was experimenting with convergence in Phoenix, newspaper–television station cross-ownership was under scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and US courts. Until 2003, FCC rules prevented a company from owning a television station and newspaper in the same market. Those rules were adopted in 1975, when Media General already owned both the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV, so the Florida partnership was grandfathered in. Gannett has a waiver of FCC rules, good until October 2006, that gives permission to own both the Republic and KPNX and has said it will seek a renewal of that waiver if necessary (Gannett Co. Inc., 2005). In July 2003, however, after months of public comment, the FCC commissioners voted 3-2 to relax several media ownership rules, including the so-called “cross-ownership” rule (Ahrens, 2003). A year later, however, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered the FCC to reconsider the rule changes, which it said the commission had failed to adequately justify (Labaton, 2004). Several large media companies, including Gannett and Media General—which had print–broadcast partnerships outside Tampa that would have been affected by the old rule—appealed the ruling. But in June 2005, the US Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal (Associated Press, 2005). The FCC voted on June 21, 2006, to begin reviewing the ownership rules (Ahrens, 2006)..

6. In 2002, there were 233 reporters and editors at the Tampa Tribune, 37 reporters and producers at WFLA, and the 13 producers at www.tbo.com (Stevens, 2002).

7. KPNX did receive notice about 10 days out of Republic stories that were planned in advance. Allread said, however, that producers quickly learned that “what it said they would be doing a week from now may not actually go a week from now and, in most cases, won't.”