"This place..!" Challenge and change to journalistic identity in a digital age. A study of three London local newsrooms

This research takes three local newsrooms in London in the years 2011-2013 as the setting within which to explore and examine the nature of journalistic identity in a changing economic, technological and cultural environment. It identifies elements of this shared culture, using a combination of non- participant observation and interviews. A newsroom culture emerges which is collaborative and supportive for journalists operating within it, but also fundamentally cautious and conservative and reluctant to ask core questions about how its newspapers operate, who its readers really are, how to attract new readers and how to engage with others outside mainstream local journalism who have entered the arena of local news and comment. In other words, local newspaper journalists are in some ways their own worst enemy.