Abstract
The Christian Science Monitor was once a thriving daily newspaper, known for its commitment to serious journalism that resulted in seven Pulitzer Prizes and many other accolades. Nonetheless, the organization was not able to stop its decline in subscribers after the turn of the century and, consequently, had to halt its daily presses.
It was perhaps surprising to some that a news outlet that resorted to become only a weekly print magazine to salvage its newsroom also showed bursting ambition. With a digital first mantra, the organization’s leaders hoped that The Monitor was destined to become a rival of the biggest news outlets on the World Wide Web. Yet, what followed was a decade-long rollercoaster ride with some short highs and many rapid lows—losing many seats in the newsroom along the way.
Carrie Brown, the founding director of the social journalism master’s program at the City University of New York, and Jonathan Groves, chair of the communication department of Drury University, had the foresight to observe the sweeping strategy changes of The Monitor over a period of 10 years. The result is a fascinating case study about a newsroom that was full of spirit, yet often conflicted about the many directions it was going.
But the case study is not the dominant storyline of their book. As the title, Transforming Newsrooms (as in plural), suggests, this book focuses on models of change and innovation that are applicable in any newsroom. Its nine chapters, in addition to the introduction and conclusion, devote three to the trials and tribulations of The Monitor in implementing its online strategies. Other chapters focus on understanding values and culture within newsrooms, development of strategy and entrepreneurial mindsets, and leadership through change and resistance. Overall, it makes the case that a detailed understanding of newsroom culture is needed to allow innovations to be accepted and embraced.
The book aims to serve as a practical guide to navigate structural and cultural change for news organizations facing economic hardship in the ultra-competitive media landscape, but with a focus on internal struggles to innovate rather than the competitive battles with other media outlets. That was a deliberate choice by the authors. As they explain in detail, an organization cannot be competitive when innovation is not fully supported by those people who are responsible for the content that needs to set the organization apart from the challengers in the marketplace.
The result is a compelling work that is very suitable for both content strategy and sociology of news courses. It demonstrates clearly that change in the newsroom does not necessarily start by adopting newer technologies and gadgets, but only by fully understanding the written and unwritten rules in the newsroom that have developed over many years. The book may have an even deeper impact on people who already gained experience in a newsroom and have witnessed (and perhaps embodied) the resistance to change. They know that many journalists are creatures of habit who would like to continue things the way they always have been done. Although somewhat romantic on one side, this thinking also leads to defiance of anything threatening that way of life—even if holding onto established practices results in a continuous decline in audiences.
Brown and Groves explain in detail how newsroom leaders should examine their organization’s culture to gain strategies to convince reporters and editors to develop a capacity to adapt and learn rapidly when it comes to new attempts to gain readership—importantly, without developing the learning anxieties that change usually brings. The authors focus especially on the need for journalists to listen more and better to their audiences, and to provide them some equity in shaping the news output. They do so by making a solid case for the importance of continuous optimization of content strategy, because without measuring and evaluating the successes (and failures) of new initiatives in newsrooms, staff members will never know whether their hard work and dedication is worth it. Furthermore, a lack of transparency could lead to more resistance toward future innovations to the point that staff members just wait out the storm until their bosses are replaced with someone with different ideas.
All of these elements were also visible in the case study of the Christian Science Monitor. The authors concluded that the past is ever-present within the organization, which stalled and doomed numerous innovations that were aimed to revitalize news products. It emphasized how important it is for newsrooms to balance their cultural, strategic, and innovative imperatives, which allow them to survive and thrive in competitive news environments. Without such balance, as the authors contend, media organizations will not be in a position to understand what information their communities need. And, without that understanding, news outlets are simply not capable to serve their communities.