What Fear Does to Newsrooms – And Why Media Leaders Need to Talk About It

Walk into almost any newsroom today, and you can feel it before you see it: the low hum of worry.

About AI and what it might do to jobs.
About the next round of cuts.
About covering wars, culture wars, and a heating planet with fewer people and less time.

We talk a lot about changein this industry. We talk far less about the emotionthat shapes how leaders and teams respond to that change: fear.

In a new open-access article for the Journal of Media Business Studies, my co-authors and I set out to treat fear not as background noise in media management, but as a central factor shaping how news organisations function. We systematically reviewed 18 studies published since 2000 and mapped what we currently know - and crucially, what we still overlook - about fear in news media decision-making.

As 2025 winds down and executives begin planning for 2026, this feels particularly timely.

Fear Is Everywhere - But Mostly Unnamed

News leaders already know the context: we're operating in a permanent state of polycrisis.

A global health shock. Turbulent economies. A rapidly accelerating climate emergency. Political polarisation. Wars. Platform upheaval and audience fragmentation. And now the accelerating impact of generative AI.

Against this backdrop, it would be strange notto feel fear.

What's less visible is how that fear filters into editorial judgement, team dynamics, product strategy, innovation decisions and the way leaders govern risk inside their organisations. Fear is present at every level of the value chain - but rarely discussed as a management reality.

Our scoping study pulls these threads together and asks: what actually happens to news organisations when fear becomes a defining feature of their working environment?

Internal Fear: Silence, Pressure and Stalled Innovation

Across countries and contexts, the reviewed studies reveal recurring internal patterns:

• A culture of "vertical fear"
  Hierarchical, defensive or confrontational communication breeds silence. Managers fear pushback; journalists fear consequences. Transparency evaporates precisely when it's most needed.
• Chronic precarity
  Constant restructuring, shrinking budgets and unstable freelance markets create a baseline of anxiety. Under that mental load, risk-taking becomes harder, and creativity becomes fragile.
• Fear of new technologies and processes
  Innovations in product, data or AI often trigger fears about competence, autonomy or quality erosion. The result is resistance - not because people oppose progress, but because they fear being left behind.
• Erosion of editorial independence
  Commercial and political pressures heighten fears about offending advertisers, owners or officials. This often results in self-censorship, softened copy and reduced appetite for investigative reporting.
• Maths anxiety and avoidance of data-driven reporting
  Even the basics of numeracy create fear for some journalists, narrowing the range of work they feel able to do.

External Fear: Politics, Platforms and a Climate of Crisis

Outside the newsroom, other forces amplify the emotional burden:

• Political and economic pressurespush journalists into self-censorship or encourage narratives aligned with powerful actors.
• Crises - from war to climate shocks -intensify stress, heighten personal risk and can push coverage into narrow or ethnocentric frames.
• Technological anxietyfeeds concerns about replaceability and identity: what is a journalist when machines can do parts of the job?
• Freelancers and citizen journalistsendure the greatest exposure with the least protection, facing legal, physical and reputational threats without institutional backing.

These factors don't remain "out there". They seep into workflow, collaboration, editorial judgement and leaders' willingness to experiment or invest.

Fear Isn't Only a Problem - It's Also a Signal

One key finding: fear has a functional side.

A healthy fear of misinforming the public, of mishandling crises, or of breaching trust can sharpen ethical judgement and raise standards.

But chronic, unmanaged fear does the opposite. It narrows thinking, corrodes confidence, and accelerates burnout - ultimately limiting the organisation's ability to innovate, adapt or retain talent.

As we enter 2026, leaders will not only be budgeting for technology, talent and transformation; they will also be budgeting for emotional capacity, whether explicitly or not.

A Leadership Agenda for 2026: Naming Fear, Designing Around It

The lesson from this research is not to "eliminate" fear - impossible in a period defined by volatility - but to recognise it and design healthier organisational systems around it.

That might look like:

• Creating structured ways for teams to surface anxieties about AI, safety or editorial pressure.
• Investing in psychological safety, not just physical safety.
• Ensuring freelancers receive the same training and protection as staff.
• Watching carefully for signs of "vertical fear" in managerial communication.
• Supporting innovation by acknowledging - not dismissing - the discomfort that comes with change.

The industry has long built strategies around revenue, technology and audience behaviour.

Perhaps 2026 is the year we add something more human to the list: understanding the emotional forces that quietly drive our decisions.

If we want news organisations that are resilient, creative and trusted, fear cannot remain the unspoken variable. Naming it is not about weakness. It may well be one of the most practical and necessary leadership moves we can make.

--

About the Author

Dr François Nel is a Reader in Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship and director of the Media Innovation Studio at the University of Lancashire, where he leads the Journalism Innovation & Leadership (JILeaders) Programme and its applied learning pathway - from the part-time, distance-learning Postgraduate Certificate through to the MA and the PhD by Portfolio. A long-time researcher of media transformation, François is co-author of World Press Trends Outlook, with the next edition to be published in January 2026. His latest open-access article, Fear Factor: Mapping the Influence of Fear in News Media Management, is available here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16522354.2025.2593761#d1e297

Learn more at: www.mediainnovationstudio.org

WAN-IFRA External Contributor

[email protected]