Hybrid newsrooms, four years into the pandemic

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As we’re nearing four years since the COVID-19 pandemic started reshaping the workplace, it’s a good moment to take a look at whether and how these changes have stuck. 

A new Changing Newsrooms report by the Reuters Institute looks at how news publishers are adapting to today’s challenges, such as attracting and retaining diverse talent and implementing AI. One of the questions discussed: whether and how newsrooms are implementing hybrid working practices.

Overall, most news organisations have adapted to the new reality, at least on the operational level. Two-thirds of senior newsroom leaders surveyed confirmed that their employers “have largely implemented flexible and hybrid working model with new rules in place for staff”; only 16% returned to the pre-pandemic model. Productivity has stayed the same or increased for 74% respondents. 

Easier recruitment and being able to hire more diverse talent are real and tangible benefits. In just one case study, Euractiv’s executive Gökşen Çalışkan recently told The Fix that flexible work has allowed the Brussels-based publisher to diversify the team and make job openings more accessible, even though they don’t offer fully remote arrangements.

It’s still hard, though. In the longer term newsrooms are struggling to adapt their organisational culture to the new-ish normal. “38% of news leaders who participated in the survey [said] that the shift to hybrid and flexible working has weakened staff’s sense of belonging to the organisation”, the authors write. Many newsroom leaders still need to figure out how to build strong organisations in the post-pandemic world.

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