No, news beats aren’t dead. But they do look different in today’s digital world. Just who is covering what? Do assigned beats matter? What’s the tension between journalistic specialization and the general assignment beat? This episode features guests from a recent Journalism Practice special issue, “The State of the News Beat.”

Zvi Reich, Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, joins as one of the issue’s editors, and Richard Jones, subject leader for the area of media, journalism, and film at the university of Huddersfield in the UK, talks about his article, “It’s the best job on the paper,” where he investigates the state of court reporting in the UK. 

Text Featured in this Episode:

Reich, Z., Jackman, O., Mishaly, T., & Blum, L. (2021). The State of the News Beat: Expertise and Division of Labour in Current Newsrooms. Journalism Practice, 15(9), 1199-1202.

Jones, R. (2021). “It’s the Best Job on the Paper”–The Courts Beat During the Journalism Crisis. Journalism Practice, 1-22.

Produced and hosted by Robert (Ted) Gutsche, Jr.

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