Editorial Convergence Equals Lower News Content Diversity? : a Mixed-Methods-Study Assessing Organization and Reporting of German Newspapers

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This study focuses on two central elements of news journalism: editorial convergence and the diversity of news content. The goal was to examine a potentially negative impact of a more centrally organized newsroom on structural and content diversity in news journalism. Therefore, we examined three German newspapers with different degrees of editorial convergence to assess their organizational development as well as their reporting’s development regarding content diversity. Our results do not support a direct impact of editorial convergence on diversity. Independent of changes to editorial organization, the diversity of news content has remained the same on a high level.