Place, power and the pandemic: The disrupted material settings of television news making during COVID-19 in an Indonesian broadcaster

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant social distancing measures offer a compelling context through which to understand the changing relationship between journalism and place. Through an ethnography of news making at a major Indonesian news broadcaster, this study explored the material settings of news making during the pandemic and the consequences of the place-based realignments on journalistic practice, professionalism, and authority. Four main findings emerged. First, we found that as far as broadcast journalists are concerned there are no alternatives to the newsroom; making news in the newsroom was synonymous with their professional journalistic identity. A second finding is to highlight the key role of place in shaping press-source relations. In our case, the loss of physical proximity to government sources had major consequences for power relations between journalists and authorities. Third, certain news objects held particular meaning for journalists, and that when disrupted, can have deleterious consequences for their professional identity. Finally, our study witnessed an important shift in journalistic routines that favoured the live field report over pre-recorded packages or in-depth analysis. Findings are discussed in the context of ongoing debates about journalistic routines, identities, and the “material turn” in journalism studies