When a newsroom becomes too small to think

From the outside, everything appears normal. Yet journalism is one of those professions in which an institution can remain operational long after it has begun losing its capacity. Retrenchments, mergers and newsroom contractions are usually explained as business decisions. Advertising revenues are under pressure, digital platforms have changed the market and operating costs have risen. However, there is another economy inside a newsroom that rarely appears on a balance sheet: the economy of experience.

A journalist who has spent years covering Parliament, courts, business or doing investigative journalism, develops professional memory. They know which promises have been made before and which statistics deserve interrogation. When that journalist leaves, an organisation may save a salary but it also loses institutional memory.