By Anu Nathan
These were the questions addressed by the presenters in the Asian Media Leaders Summit session titled ‘The Newsroom in 2022 and beyond – Hybrid Newsrooms’ moderated by Andrea Tan – Asia Pacific Team Leader, Daybreak Bloomberg News, Singapore.

Kicking off the session was Federica Cherubini, Head of Leadership Development at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, UK. Referencing her research paper Changing Newsrooms 2021: hybrid working and improving diversity remain twin challenges for publishers, published last year, she spoke about the challenges to newsrooms and the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that are still impacting news organisations.

One thing is certain from the Reuters report – hybrid workflows will be the norm for the majority in the news industry. 

“Many people will find their newsroom a very different place to the one they left behind at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Some will no longer be returning to an office space at all, while others will find a reduced floorspace and have to adapt to hot desks as staff rotate between days at the office and days at home,” Cherubini said.

The general sentiment from respondents was that working from home was affecting creativity, collaboration and the sense of belonging, particularly for younger and newer employees who still had not had time to build strong bonds with their colleagues. Additionally, there were concerns of isolation and mental health issues, not just for...