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Pay-Per-View Journalism Is Burning Out Reporters Young
Hugh Pickens writes "Young journalists once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story, but the NY Times now reports that instead many are working online shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google's algorithms and draw readers their way. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times all display a 'most viewed' list on their home pages; some media outlets, including Bloomberg News and Gawker Media, now pay writers based in part on how many readers click on their articles. 'At a [traditional] paper, your only real stress point is in the evening when you're actually sitting there on deadline, trying to file,' says Jim VandeHei, Politico's executive editor. 'Now at any point in the day starting at 5 in the morning, there can be that same level of intensity and pressure to get something out.' The pace has led to substantial turnover in staff at digital news organizations. At Politico, roughly a dozen reporters have left in the first half of the year — a big number for a newsroom that has only about 70 reporters and editors. 'When my students come back to visit, they carry the exhaustion of a person who's been working for a decade, not a couple of years,' says Duy Linh Tu of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 'I worry about burnout.'"
Really? I suggest you get some therapy. Computers haven't really changed your job or the way you work, you have. YOU think you need to answer an email the instant it comes in. YOU think you are shackled to your desk.
In short, your problem is all in your head.
If you don't respond to an email within a couple hours, no one is going to die. If they are, you definitately are in the wrong job as you clearly can't handle self-inflicted stress, let alone something thats really stressful.
If you don't like your job, LEAVE. McDonalds is hiring. And yes, it is that simple. The reality of it is, everything you throw out to justify why you can't go work at McDonalds comes down to one thing: You don't want to work at McDonalds. Your current job is better on a number of levels, and thats all you've got for reasons to not work there. You're just whining about bullshit because you need to have something in your life that makes you feel needed.
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Its not that they are journalists but how is it that nobody in the actual industry ever goes back and calls people on what they said 6 months ago?
Fox News does that (not that I'm a Fox News fan, or that I trust Fox News not to quote things out of context). So your point about "serious journalism" still stands.
I'm sure this "burnout" isn't confined to journalism. Virtually everybody I know who is shackled to a deskjob with an email account faces the same problem.
Exactly. This is whining. Oh poor me, I have to sit in an air conditioned office and type all day, it's all...just...too horrible!
Try working in a mine. Or on a farm. Whiny little twits.
A related problem is that my dog could get a degree in journalism. It's like a degree in "communications". The reason the world is lousy with excess journalists, sociologists, teachers, etc. is that getting a degree in journalism or education is trivial. The world, you may notice, does not have a giant excess of chemical engineers or nuclear physicists.
I'm sorry all you twentysomething crusaders who thought you'd take up the cudgels for truth, freedom, and the socialist way and strike a literary blow for the blah blah but you're just going to have to get real jobs. And work hard.
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True, so true...
...but I have a hard time not laughing when watching Fox News... First time I thought it was a parody :)
Disclaimer: I'm from Europe...