This study examines the effects of newsroom topic teams on news routines and newspaper quality. It is based on a census survey of journalists at the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which both instituted topic teams within six months of each other. Survey results are supplemented by focus group and written comments from journalists in these two Newspaper Guild newsrooms. The study finds that the effects of the team system on the news process and news quality have been mixed, but predominantly negative, in the assessment of these journalists.

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The contribution of electronic information technologies to breaking general assignment and routine beat news stories in large metropolitan newspapers is examined through a content analysis and in-depth interviews with reporters. Reporters working on breaking news stories make hea y use of their own paper's electronic bacqles and of fax technology, but do not use other information technologies available to them. Reporters use multiple sources for their stories and claim that electronic information technologies make it easier and faster to identify sources. However, the content analysis reveals reporters rely on the same types of sources representing the same institutional and social power structures as in the classic newsmaking studies.nologies, have had much more attention? Accordingly, this study revisits some previously "established conclusions about newsmaking and raises additional issues about the studies of earlier decades. Kathleen A. HansenandJean Wardarefacultymembers,andJoan L. Conners isadoctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Mark Neuzil is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and MassCommunication at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. This research was supported, in part, by a grantfrom the University of Minnesota GraduateSchool.

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