Walking the Newsroom: Towards a Sensory Experience of Journalism

Sander Hölsgens

We invite you to join us on a walk through the newsroom of a regional newspaper, Dagblad van het Noorden. We trace how the journalists perceive, articulate, engage, embrace, challenge, are receptive to, and give form to the ‘atmospheres’ of their workspace. The concept of atmospheres is central in how we have looked at the newsroom. On this walk, we explore the spatial, socio-cultural, rhythmic, tonal, and somatic characteristics of the recently redesigned newsroom, using video, sound, text, and drawing. Employing artistic methods, we want to let you experience this newsroom together with us – giving you insight into the journalists’ lived experience of their profession as fundamentally interwoven with the idiosyncrasies of their workspace. Our host on the walk is online news editor Alfred Meester. Alfred walked us, Saskia and Sander, through the newsroom, which we visited as part of the project Exploring Journalism’s Limits (funded by the Dutch Research Council, NWO, project number: 314-99-205). Also joining us on this day is Ricky Booms, a visual artist invited to reflect on the space alongside us. Along the way, we encounter visual editors, interns, freelancers, editorial staff writers, and learn about the kinds of spaces that resonate with them. The walk takes approximately 45 minutes.

Silence please

For some, buzz is deemed instrumental and typical for a good functioning newsroom, as is exemplified by Alfred’s relation to sound (see ‘Alfred’s Workspace’). Others feel differently about the newsroom’s design. An hour or so after the guided tour through the newsroom, we had the opportunity to interview a freelance photographer and a visual editor, the latter of whom has his own, personalised workspace downstairs, within an arm’s reach of most of the public notices. When discussing how they experience the newsroom, the visual editor explains:

'It’s not without reason that I… if you look around, you can see posters urging people not to make phone calls here. I put them there because everyone came here… since it’s a relatively quiet corner… to make a phone call. I don’t like that, because we do have to work here (…) In our workspace, it’s only become busier and busier.'

The significance of this observation is not the factual story per se, nor who’s got it right and for what reasons. Rather, it underlines the different needs in atmospheres to feel comfortable and productive: what feels right for the online news editor who thrives on buzz is experienced as noise by the visual editor. As a consequence, the visual editor took measures to make his workspace correspond with his perception of what a pleasant working environment feels like.

The example emphasises that sound is central, or as Eisenlohr states: ‘Sound is one of our principal modes of experiential commingling with the world’ (Eisenlohr, 2018, p.39). It also shows that there are different uses, experiences, and engagements with sound. As such, it gives insight into how the journalists’ perception of their workspace is inscribed in their work practices. The online news editor embraces and generates a sonic atmosphere of buzz, which is key to his role within the organisation: the buzz enables him to conduct the kind of journalistic work he values most within the web-driven production processes he is involved in. The visual editor, on the other hand, experiences this journalistic practice in a completely different manner:

‘It’s very noisy. I need to get used to it. It is slowly improving. (…) Lots of colleagues now wear headphones to work in a quieter environment.’

Interestingly, the online news editor also seeks to create another type of atmosphere that feels right for him in these moments. He, for instance, explains how he feels the need to bodily turn away from the open workspaces so that he cannot be approached: During meetings at the chief editor’s office, he decidedly sits with his back to the newsroom to ensure he is not caught up in the buzzy atmosphere and instead can concentrate on the task at hand. Artist Ricky Booms also responds to this element of the space. He was initially drawn to the newsroom’s spatial configuration:

‘At the end of the day, I found that not the objects made the space, but the space itself. I would call it a chaotic openness. Maybe it’s… and of course, it depends on individuals, but when I arrived, I was overwhelmed.’

However, this ‘chaotic openness’ did not quite live up to his expectation of what a newsroom would sound like:

‘I just expected more chaos with all the people who were there. As I said, I expected a floor full of buzz, with people who are constantly screaming, ‘stop the press! Something has happened!’. But everyone was working somewhat quietly (…) So it wasn’t the buzz and chaos I expected, but it was clear that you were never working by yourself.’

The sonic implications of working in open workspaces – undirected noise, roars during impactful news events, an audible proximity to colleagues, as much as a perceived quietness – can unveil the material conditions of the newsroom and, in some occasions, hits the journalists’ ideology and convictions when it comes to their profession and practice. It shows how atmospheres are always present, conditioning how the world appears to us, and newsrooms are no exception. At the same time, it also shows how inhabitants of a space seek to create what feels like the right type of atmosphere for them at that particular moment, and they navigate and co-create atmospheres.

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