Routine reliance revisited: Exploring media importance for German political journalists

Although routine reliance on other media is regarded as a major factor in journalists' news decisions, it gets little scholarly attention. This study investigates the importance of media use for journalistic work. Taking German political journalists as an example, the study shows that media use is a major part of everyday journalistic work, as indicated by the amount of time journalists spend using other media and by the importance they assign to other media for different stages of news production. However, the importance of other media differs among journalists working for different types of media and among journalists of different ages and political views.