A certain uncertainty—The ambiguities of journalistic feedback

Abstract Critique is widely regarded as a constitutive element of journalism. Particularly in Public Service Media, feedback is normatively upheld as a core professional value and an indispensable component of editorial work. Yet scholars of journalism have rarely examined feedback as it is actually practiced by journalists. Drawing on (digital) ethnographic observations of routine newsroom conferences in two editorial offices, this article looks to do just that: it examines the role of editorial feedback in everyday journalistic practice. Conceptualizing feedback as a socially embedded and situationally contingent practice, our analysis shows how journalistic feedback is, at its core, inherently ambiguous. It operates as both a journalistic resource and a journalistic constraint, and as such, it is simultaneously embraced and avoided by journalists. While it, on one hand, enables shared orientation and the stabilization of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, it also, on the other is often seen as intrusive, illegitimate, or threatening. By reconstructing these tensions, the article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of feedback as a constitutive yet ambivalent feature of journalism. And in doing so, this article also provides a basis for more precisely grasping the conditions under which innovation can emerge from editorial practice.