Most Swedish newsrooms refer to some kind of news policy documents in their work. Still, these rules are not used for detailed regulation of daily newsroom work. Professional criteria of newsworthiness are probably much more important for these procedures than are commonly shared official principles. recent national surveys among Swedish journalists confirm their stable perceptions of news values based on professional judgements of the social significance and deviation of an event. Editorial routines are also perceived as increasingly relevant for decisions on news processes (Ghersetti 2007).
National interviews show that four out of six investigated newsrooms have written policies and a structured set of daily and weekly news meetings to implement the policies. The two others also have a structured news process, even though their policies are not written down. Two newsrooms also employ so-called quality editors who have internal as well as external tasks (daily columns). Most newsrooms strive to combine weekly/monthly planning (allowing for enterprising and investigative reporting according to policies) with the important political events of the day, emerging themes in social media and suggestions from specialized reporters within the newsroom.
Among regional media, the newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning has a written multimedia policy discussing the principles for news processing on different platforms such as newspapers, radio stations, the Web and mobile platforms. However, these principles should be perceived as guidelines, and the daily newsrooms practices are more shaped by the daily flow of events, available editorial resources and the interests of single journalists. Public service regional media, with limited editorial staff and budget, admit that there is a risk that news processes are decided to too great a degree by who happens to be working on a particular day.
