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 know it. While providing an overview of key events shaping the media environment in South Africa over 2015 and 2016, it considers transformation in the print media industry – a view from the ‘inside’ – before turning to coverage of the recent #FeesMustFall student protests, which demonstrated how independent news producers could cover unfolding events more effectively than the mainstream media, and how student social media impacted on the coverage offered by the mainstream.
A key strength of this report is the perspectives of editors and journalists – the result of a series of interviews – both working in the mainstream newsroom and writing into the news from the ‘outside’.