Navigating Platform Pressures: Digital Content Producers and Gatekeeping in Digital Newsrooms

Digital content producers (DCPs) occupy a unique position within contemporary newsrooms, with their role operating at the intersection of editorial, managerial, and commercial functions of journalism. As journalism has become increasingly shaped by platformization and data-driven logics, DCPs navigate the dual pressures of audience engagement and revenue generation. Through qualitative interviews with 15 DCPs and digital content managers (DCMs) working across local, regional, and national U.S. digital newsrooms, this study explores how news workers navigate competing professional norms and platform demands. The findings indicate that while DCPs are guided by journalistic norms and values such as accuracy, transparency, and public service, financial pressures and digital tools have shifted newsroom practices from producing news for the public toward producing news the public already wants. As social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and X devalue or deprioritize news content, digital journalists adapt to the visual and engagement-driven logics to sustain visibility and reach. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.