News Work: The Impact of Corporate-implemented Technology on Local Television Newsroom Labor

By virtue of their licenses, local television stations in the United States must serve in the public interest of their communities. Because many stations’ ownership is by corporate conglomerates, however, that public interest is often considered secondary to revenue maximization. Labor is exploited to meet this goal, with technology deployed in newsrooms to consolidate job descriptions, replace human labor with computers, and add sales-ready content platforms, while drawing as much surplus value from workers as possible. This study sought out newsroom employees, including rarely-studied behind the scenes personnel, in the 25 largest metropolitan areas of the country to find out how this utilization of technology affected their journalistic work routines and output. Their responses via online surveys and semi-structured interviews highlight the challenges of juggling ever-increasing tech-enabled job responsibilities while still providing quality reports for their audiences in a corporate ownership environment focused on profits.