What “Digital Literacies” Must Journalists Have? Unpacking How Journalists Define and Practice News Literacy, Data Literacy, and Algorithmic and AI Literacy in the Digital Age

As media environments become increasingly complex, with a myriad of actors producing news, new technologies entering into newsrooms, and a large amount of data and (fake) news in circulation, journalists must obtain a set of "digital literacies" essential to function in the newsroom. Such literacies will enable journalists to perform their public service role to accurately inform the citizenry; currently, journalist perspectives on this topic have never been explored. Through in-depth interviews with journalists and editors, this study reveals "news literacy", "data literacy", "algorithmic literacy" and "AI literacy" as core to contemporary journalistic work—participants in this study offered their own definitions of these terms, and how these literacies are put into practice as actual newsroom behaviors, such as research, verification, diversification of sources, contextualization of data, and search engine optimization. Given obstacles such as time constraints, unfamiliarity with new technologies, and the presence of certain beliefs and discourses that might hinder the practice of such literacies, this paper points to two factors that can encourage such literacy behaviors—pertaining to (1) personal motivations and (2) organizational norms and structures—to increase journalistic knowledge and skills in the digital age.