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STRUCTURING THE SCIENCE BEAT

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 5; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17512786.2010.530984

1751-2794

Jan Lublinski,

Public Relations and Crisis Communication

Abstract Science journalism, as one specialisation within journalism, has undergone remarkable changes in the past two decades; not only in content but also in the way work in the newsroom is structured. This paper takes a closer look at science beats and their organisational variance. Observational studies conducted in German newsrooms are reviewed and concepts from organisational theory are discussed. Two heuristic concepts are introduced for the analysis of journalistic work processes in newsrooms, the beat concept and the mental editorial plan. The paper then constructs four ideal types of science beats to describe possible development trends within newsrooms: the current news science beat, the creative science beat, the audience- and business-oriented science journalism team, and the science beat as a specialised correspondents' office. The latter cooperates with various other beats or departments and is engaged in dynamic topic teams. For this new work-structure, the paper argues, a high level of journalistic proficiency is demanded of science journalists to sustain and improve the quality of science journalism in changing newsrooms. Keywords: journalistic professionnewsroomorganisational theoryscience beatscience journalismscience journalism in Germany ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Nadia el-Awady, Holger Hettwer, Markus Lehmkuhl, Klaus Meier, Hans Peter Peters, Sherard Wilson, Holger Wormer and Franco Zotta for discussions and comments. Notes 1. See, for example, Hansen and Dickinson (Citation1992), Durant et al. (Citation1998) and Friedmann et al. (Citation1999), and the meta-survey of the literature on science journalism by Kohring (Citation2005). 2. See Hansen (Citation1994), Göpfert and Schanne (Citation1998), Marcotte and Sauvageau (2004), Meier and Feldmeier (2005) and Blöbaum (Citation2008). Also a large international study has been carried out on interactions between scientists and journalists (Peters et al., Citation2008). A few unpublished manuscripts on the usage of sources by science journalists in Germany are available on the Web (Blöbaum et al., Citation2004; Pahl, Citation1997; Stamm, Citation1995), and also the work in fact-checking departments has been looked at (Lublinski, Citation2007). 3. The three other organisational forms described by Mintzberg (1979) are the simple structure (which describes mostly smaller organisations in which the staff is directly led by the management), the machine bureaucracy (in which standardisation of work processes plays an important role) and the divisionalised form (in which the organisation is segmented into divisions which each focus on a subset of products and markets). For the analysis of newsroom structures these three ideal types can also be used, to describe e.g. the development of small news organisations like local private radio stations (simple structure), news organisations in which standardisation of work processes plays an increasingly important role (trend towards machine bureaucracy) or a broadcasting company which sets up different TV programmes for different audiences (divisionalised form) (Lublinski, 2004a, pp. 61–77). 4. As an example for this Cook (Citation2007) describes how the Houston Chronicle covered an explosion in BP's Texas City refinery by involving not only local and political reporters but also reporters with specialisations in economics, environment and investigative research. This work in a team beyond beat-barriers made it possible to shed a light on the long history of fires and explosions in this plant and the very loose safety strategy of the company's management. 5. In these observational studies the time German journalists spent with communication and interaction was measured. Journalists in private radio stations: 25 per cent, planning editors in larger private radio stations: 52 per cent (Altmeppen, Citation1999, p. 141); science editors in public radio stations: 48 per cent (Lublinski, 2004a, p. 267), journalists in online-newsrooms: 34 per cent (Quandt, Citation2005, p. 279), science journalists in newspapers: 40 per cent (Vicari, 2007, p. 117). 6. At Berliner Zeitung the science editors spend 5.7 per cent of their overall working time with peer-to-peer discussions, 19.8 per cent with telephone calls and emails, and 13.8 per cent in different meetings. At Frankfurter Rundschau the fractions are 11.6, 18 and 8.4 per cent, respectively (Vicari, 2007, p. 117). 7. Twelve per cent of the observed actions of the editors at Berliner Zeitung are editing and sub-editing manuscripts. At Frankfurter Rundschau this work amounts to 6 per cent (Vicari, 2007, p. 91). 8. At Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung the science editors spent 9.9 per cent of their overall working time with peer-to-peer discussions and 31.8 per cent with telephone calls and emails. They did not attend formal meetings during Vicari's observation. 46.8 per cent of the observed actions of the editors are reading on the Web or reading printed products. The fractions for reading at Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau are 17.9 and 19.1, per cent, respectively (Vicari, 2007, pp. 87–97, 117). 9. Public radio and television in Germany are a very special case. After World War II a federal broadcasting structure was established that allowed for many regions or states to have their own public broadcaster. These organisations produce a comparably rich radio culture. 10. They only spend 100 minutes per week in meetings while at Forschung Aktuell and Leonardo the editors spent 130 and 240 minutes, respectively, in meetings (Lublinski, 2004a, p. 264). 11. Forty-seven per cent of the coordinations on content episodes in the WDR environment beat were held with editors from other beats, 29 per cent with reporters who worked for their own beat and 19 per cent with other editors of their own beat. For comparison: at Forschung Aktuell the percentages were 9, 56 and 32, respectively; and for Leonardo: 18, 38 and 40, respectively. All three beats were observed for three weeks each (Lublinski, 2004a, p. 259). 12. A few years after the observations this environmental beat at WDR was merged with colleagues who work for the daily science programme Leonardo. The journalists in this new team now combine the beat concepts of both former teams: they work for their own programme and, at the same time, cooperate as reporters with other beats and departments (Lublinski, 2008). 13. The observational studies in science beats have so far not looked specifically at this aspect. But this trend is described by Lobigs (2008) in a survey of the growing German popular science magazine market.