Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Copyright © The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav London, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Singapore, and Washington DC Vol 15(4): 1–16 DOI: 10.1177/1354856509342780 http://con.sagepub.com Media Crisis Management in Traditional and Digital Newsrooms Eva-Karin Olsson National Center for Crisis Management Research and Training (CRISMART), Swedish National Defence College, Sweden Abstract / By comparing two newsrooms’ responses, one with a traditional mode of production and one with a digital, to the terror attacks of 9/11, this article demonstrates that newsrooms, in contrast to what previous research tells us, differ in their ability to cover crisis events. Drawing upon findings from previous research on how news organizations cope with extraordinary – and crisis – events, the study explains news desks’ ability to cope with the disruptions of everyday deadlines caused by ‘disaster marathon modes’ of reporting, based on organizational everyday structures and previous experiences. The study concludes that a digital newsroom designed to handle 24 hour reporting does not necessarily nor automatically have a suitable structure to deal with a crisis event. Rather, in this particular case the structure used for 24/7 coverage, based on journalists’ independ- ence and decentralization, was directly counterproductive when dealing with a crisis event. Key Words / crisis / management / news production / routines / 11 September 2001 (9/11) Newsroom Responses to Crisis Events: The Role of Organizational Everyday Structure and Previous Experiences In today’s media-driven world, news organizations face enormous challenges in report- ing disasters and crisis events in a high-speed and professional manner. The quantity of incoming material, as well as the pressure to report the news, is vast. In terms of program scheduling, news organizations can cope with these challenges in essentially two ways: by holding on to their everyday news broadcast schedule or by remaking their coverage into extended live open-broadcasts, so called ‘disaster marathons’, which appears to be the preferred mode of reporting crises today (Liebes, 1998; Katz and Liebes, 2007). The disaster marathon mode of reporting not only has implications for the appliance of journalistic norms, but it also very much confronts newsroom managers with profound organizational challenges since they tear apart the existing structures which are centered ARTICLE