Interestingly, there seems to have been progress over time. When first contacting people in the news media to talk about algorithms and their role in journalism, people seemed less articulate about their potential than they seem today. While the early days of new technologies are always accompanied by a certain level of skepticism, particularly in fields engrained with strong professional values and cultures such as journalism, the interviews conducted in 2016 suggest a degree of normalization with regard to algorithms in news. This gradual normalization of algorithms is also reflected in the rate at which journalism conferences, industry seminars, panel discussions, and interest organizations put algorithms on the critical agenda. At the same time, news media professionals seem less apprehensive about algorithms than they were only a few years ago. As Hans Martin Cramer, former product developer at Aftenposten and now product manager at Schibsted Media Platform noted when I interviewed him for the second time in August 2016, the algorithms themselves are not a suficient explanation for this change in atitude. What changed since we first spoke in early 2014 was not so much the actual implementation of algorithms in the news (although things had certainly been happening) but, rather, the gradual normalization of discourses surrounding algorithms.10 “In addition,” he pointed out, “we are faced with a much more challenging economic situation, compared to just two years ago” (Interview 1, August 2016). As Cramer sees it, the media industry needs to move beyond the question of whether algorithms or robots will diminish or save the news. What is at stake is whether the new, emerging forms of journalism can be made sustainable from an economic point of view. Despite a great deal of talk about algorithms, the last few years, Cramer suggested, have shown that there are no easy solutions for developing algorithmic news production and dissemination: “it is either too complicated or too challenging.”
Yet, Scandinavian news outlets have long been at the forefront of digital innovation. Many of the managers and key stafers I talked to work for some of Scandinavia’s largest news organizations and publishing houses, including Schibsted, Polaris Media, and JP/Politikens Hus. As described by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in their annual digital news report 2016, these news outlets have a reputation for digital innovation in content and business models. Or, as The Columbia Review of Journalism recently wrote: “Leave it to the Scandinavians to be open to change and innovation, even in the ever-traditional world of newspaper journalism” (Garcia, 2017). For Espen Sundve, vice president of product management at Schibsted, news organizations essentially find themselves at an important crossroads:
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