Journalists: a bunch of reactionaries

Rosie Niven comments on the BBC’s attempts to get its staff to mix it up a little:

I’ve been in a few newsrooms now and while I applaud the attempt to get staff out of their fiefdoms and mixing with people on other desks, I can’t see how this heavy-handed policy is going to work.

Oddly enough, the lack of integration between, say, news and features desks is often a problem on print titles, that just gets exaggerated as you move towards digital. The web/print divide is just the latest in a very long line of cultural chasms that have littered our newsrooms. At least that’s been my experience over the last couple of decades.

I’d be fascinated to know if anyone has every done any research into the psychology of journalists and why they can be both territorial and suspicious of change.