State of the Newsroom
State of the Newsroom is an annual report published by the Wits Centre for Journalism that addresses emerging issues in the media landscape in South Africa. It aims to make this content accessible to a wide audience, including journalists and editors, policymakers, and academics. Through serving as a publication of record on key events and trends in journalism, it hopes to foster an environment of debate on issues impacting the news media and the practice of journalism in the country.
Three issues of State of the Newsroom have been published outside South Africa thus far – two in Malawi, and the third in Senegal, which was published in French.
State of the Newsroom 2025 – AI, Trust and Resilience: Building a Future News in South Africa
The 2025 edition of State of the Newsroom takes a detailed look at the possible impact of artificial intelligence on the news in South Africa, what’s happening now, and the changes newsrooms will need to make. We also ask media experts what they think the future holds...
State of the Newsroom 2024 – Saving Journalism in South Africa and How Newsrooms Coped with the Elections
This State of the Newsroom report covers two main areas: job losses in the news media sector, and the challenges journalists faced in the coverage of the national and provincial elections in May. It reports on some unexpected findings of a snapshot survey of staff...
State of the Newsroom – 100 Years of Radio Broadcasting
This State of the Newsroom shows that radio has the powerful potential to continue to create the inclusive, democratic culture that we looking for, but that many challenges exist. The community radio sector needs to be revitalised through fresh regulations and...
State of the Newsroom: Senegal 2023 (French)
State of the Newsroom Senegal deals with the profound impact of the internet on journalism in Senegal, disrupting how journalists work, how they access and process information and how they have to navigate the proliferation of disinformation online. Senegal is the...
State of the Newsroom Malawi: The Politics of Information – Corruption Continued
The second State of the Newsroom report from Malawi is a follow-up to our 2021 report on the same country, produced in partnership with the Continuing Journalism Education initiative. It deepens our understanding of the problem of corruption in journalism in Malawi,...
State of the Newsroom 2021: Outside the Mainstream
Edited by Alan Finlay, this State of the Newsroom report looks back on 2021 and explores whether innovative media start-ups, data journalism and local media hold the promise for a revitalised media landscape in South Africa. The focus of this issue is on local print...
State of the Newsroom: Looking back at the first year of the pandemic
The 2021 issue of State of the Newsroom overviews the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the media in South Africa in 2020. It explores the difficult terrain of data and data governance, and how the country’s media should be re-orientating itself to a local data...
State of the Newsroom: Malawi 2021 – Focus on Corruption
The Wits Centre for Journalism and the Continuing Journalism Education’s (CJE) initiative worked closely to develop the first ever State of the Newsroom for Malawi (2021). This inaugural issue focuses on corruption in the media in Malawi. The year 2020 was...
State of the Newsroom 2019: Before / After
This edition of State of the Newsroom looks back at 2019 – the year that was – and offers some initial reflections on 2020, a year that, as Franz Krüger puts it in the preface, “was impossible to ignore”. We have called this issue “Before/After” to try and capture the...
State of the Newsroom 2018 – Structured/Unstructured
The State of the Newsroom 2018: Structured/Unstructured is the fifth report of its kind to be published by the Wits Centre for Journalism, and chronicles the ups and downs of South Africa’s media industry together with a few deeper dives into specific issues. For the...
State of the Newsroom 2017: Fakers and Makers
A look at jobs in the newsroom, fake news and fact-checking journalism, and highlights the problem of threats to media freedom in South Africa. The fourth annual report, State of the Newsroom: Fakers and Makers, looks at jobs in the newsroom, fake news and...
State of the Newsroom 2015-2016: Inside/Outside
This is the third State of the Newsroom to be published by the Wits Centre for Journalism and asks the key question: what exactly do we mean by the “newsroom” today? Inside/Outside offers perspectives on what is happening both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the newsroom as we...