Newspaper journalism in crisis: Burnout on the rise, eroding young journalists career commitment

Recent research by Scott Reinardy, Ph.D. of the Ball State University Department of Journalism examines journalist burnout in an exhaustive quantitative study. Quoting from the abstract:
The three-component Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey was implemented to examine burnout among newspaper journalists (N = 770). With a moderate rate of exhaustion, a high rate of cynicism and a moderate rate of professional efficacy, burnout among journalists demonstrate higher rates of burnout than previous work. Additionally, journalists expressing intentions to leave the profession (n = 173) demonstrated high rates of exhaustion and cynicism, and moderate rates of professional efficacy, making them “at-risk” for burnout. Also, 74.5 percent of journalists 34 and younger (n = 223) expressed intentions to either leave newspaper journalism or answered “don’t know.” The most “at-risk” to burnout appear to be young copy editors or page designers working at small newspapers.

AngryJournalist.com lets fed-up journalists vent their (anonymous) rage

[This new site lets anyone vent their anger about the journalism profession anonymously. The creator, Kiyoshi Martinez, says he launched it for several reasons. Quoting:]

“In private conversations with friends I sensed that there is a growing angst among the upcoming crop of journalists entering the field right now. Journalism-school graduates have the odds stacked against them. More than likely, their education was inadequate. It’s rare that new media skills were taught or were de-emphasized making the majority of them less competitive. The job market is terrible. More companies are having hiring freezes or worse, layoffs meaning fewer opportunities are available. It’s an instance where supply greatly outnumbers demand. And of what jobs are available, these entry-level jobs pay poorly. It’s even worse in broadcast media.”

The death of American newspaper – Watchdogs watching, Jan. 29, 2008

[An eager young journalist’s ideals come crashing to earth when he interviews for a newspaper job and finds that the pay won’t even cover the basic costs of living. That’s the way it is, the editor tells him. The owner wants to make a lot of money, and that means paying starvation wages to the staff. The aspiring reporter blogs about his experience, concluding, “Im witnessing the death of American newspaper.” – Ed.]

McClatchy 4Q: Another Bad Quarter – MediaPost Publications, Feb. 7, 2008
Quoting: The McClatchy Company reported weak fourth-quarter results and a discouraging outlook for 2008, joining NYTCO and Gannett, which announced their results last week.

Gannett: 4Q Rev Drops Across Media – MediaPost, Feb. 4,2008
Quoting: “Overall, the company’s earnings were $245.3 million, down 31% compared to the same period in 2006, as revenue dipped 12% to $1.9 billion. For the full year 2007, Gannett’s newspaper ad revenues sank 6.4% to $4.9 billion, as broadcasting slipped 7.7% to $789 million.

“Like other newspaper publishers, Gannett reports that the collapse of print classified advertising revenue has been joined by declines in local and national advertising, including retail. Classifieds were down 11.4%, local 3.3%, and national 11.6%”

A.H. Belo shares fall on first day – Houston Chronicle, Feb. 11, 2008
[The stock market’s newest pure-play newspaper company disappoints in its first day as a publicly traded company. “There is a certain group of investors who don’t want to own newspapers, and they don’t care about the dividend,” says one analyst. – Ed.]

Help-Wanted Index Fell 33% in Dec. – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 1, 2008
[The Conference Board’s index of help-wanted advertising in 51 major newspapers plummeted an astonishing 33% in December. However, the organization chooses to interpret the fall as a sign of an economic slowdown rather than the real reason, which is that newspaper help-wanted advertising is no longer efficient. – Ed.]

‘Denver Post’ To Cut Biz Section – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 4, 2008
[The paper says that the standalone business section had “no heft.” The merged metro/business section will run about six pages. No job cuts are planned and business coverage won’t suffer, the Post Editor said. Last months, the Orange County Register did the same thing. Businesspeople are more likely to get their information online, so it’s no surprise these are the first sections to get cut. – Ed.]

An Industry Imperiled by Falling Profits and Shrinking Ads – New York Times, Feb. 7, 2008

[Nothing in this Times account will come as a surprise to readers of the Death Watch, although there’s a good point about consolidation of local businesses into national chains affecting advertising. This piece is mainly a mashup of the doom-and-gloom that has pervaded the industry for the last year or so. – Ed.]

A Canadian is shaking up the Northwest newspaper business – Crosscut Seattle, Feb. 4, 2008

[David Black has made a fortune investing in newspapers (he owns 175 of them) and he’s actually stepping up his investments as the industry turns down. Black sees opportunity in being on every doorstep in the communities his papers serve. Although he’s been criticized as a bottom-feeder, his strategy has worked. – Ed.]

Four Top California Editors Out — More to Come? – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 28, 2008

[A procession of top editors has headed out the door at California newspapers recently, and the trend may begin spreading nationwide. The changing of the guard is perhaps due to reluctance of veteran editors to make the painful cuts that business conditions now demand. The short-term result is demoralized newsroom staffs, but this turnover may be necessary to reinvent newspapers. – Ed.]

What’s really wrong with newspapers – Rogue Columnist, Jan. 31, 2008

[Jon Talton takes a bullet list approach to describing what went wrong with newspapers. Some of his commentary is 20:20 hindsight, but there are some interesting insights here:

• Consolidation and monopolization made newspapers insular and risk-averse. Innovation doesn’t come from companies that are trying to preserve a dominant franchise;
• New ideas aimed at attracting non-readers (what some call the McPaper syndrome) distracted attention from the reporting that kept loyal readers. The result was a double whammy: those new audiences weren’t going to read anyway, and the traditional audiences became disenfranchised and left;
  
• Groupthink in top-heavy organizations created a generation of yes-men who implemented defensive strategies and didn’t question the status quote. In the 1990s, when newspapers needed bold ideas, they were being led by sheep.
  

Check out the lively discussion that follows. This blog post touched a nerve. – Ed.]

NYTimes ad sales fall 13% – Financial Times, Jan. 31, 2008

[Despite the plunge in sales, the company actually swung to a profit in the quarter. Nevertheless, the Times says it plans to cut about $200 million in expenses in 2008. – Ed.]

What’s Needed in 2008: Serious Newsroom Cultural Change – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 2, 2008

[E&P columnist Steve Outing asks his network of contacts what they would want him to do if he could wave a magic wand and solve their problems. Many responded that they’d like to see him change the culture in newsrooms, which is still hopelessly focused on turning out the “daily miracle.” Quoting:

“The feeling in newsrooms, especially among the people on the new-media side, seems to be that there are an awful lot of people within rganizations that aren’t on board with a vision of changing for the future…implementation is being slowed by many people in the organization — including mid-level managers — who still don’t buy into the idea that a total transformation of the news organization is necessary…

“get everyone involved in using new forms of digital media. Imagine if everyone in your news organization maintained a blog, an active page on Facebook, and participated in other innovative new media forms (e.g., Twitter). By actually living the digital life and embracing it (even if you’re forced to by your boss), you’ll better understand how the modern consumer interacts with media and news.

“MySpace has well over 100 million users; Facebook has 59 million active users. With that kind of mainstream acceptance, it’s unconscionable for journalists not to participate in that online environment.

“Howard Owens, director of digital publishing at Gatehouse Media, asked for this: ‘Reporters and editors would take seriously their roles as community conversation leaders, concentrating on getting it right on the web first — web-first publishing, blogs, video, participation — and using the print edition as a greatest hits,promote the web site vehicle. Old packaged-goods-thinking about the newsPAPER would disappear overnight.’

“The feeling in newsrooms, especially among the people on the new-media side, seems to be that there are an awful lot of people within organizations that aren’t on board with a vision of changing for the future.”

Record Year For Online Newspapers – eMarketer, Jan. 28, 2008

Average monthly unique visitors to US newspaper sites increased 6% in 2007 to 60 million. Almost 40% of active US internet users visited a newspaper site during the fourth quarter.

Subtract Madison, Wisc. from the dwindling list of cities with more than one daily newspaper. The Capital Times, an afternoon fixture for more than 90 years, will cease daily publication in late April and move mostly online. It will continue to publish two free weekly editions.

In its announcement, the paper spun the decision as recognition of readers’ increasing preference for online news sources. However, the economic reality is that the paper’s circulation has dropped from a peak of 47,000 to just over 17,000. Despite the existence of a 60-year-old joint operating agreement with the Wisconsin State Journal, which also covered the story, the numbers weren’t working. Kristian Knutsen of Cap Times competitor Isthmus has a comprehensive reaction and analysis.

The decision “was driven by cool calculation and raw greed,” writes Bill Lueders in a column in Isthmus. The newspaper’s publisher begged to differ, saying that the move will rejuvenate the paper and make it a more vibrant voice in the medium where readers are clearly moving. About 40 jobs will be cut as a result of the shutdown of daily operations, with about 20 of them in the newsroom. However, that will still leave 40 editors and reporters.

Afternoon dailies, which were once the mainstay of newspapering, have been going under for years as Americans’ work and reading habits have changed. The decline in the Cap Times’ circulation is indicative of that trend.

Welcome Web wunderkind Marc Andreessen to the deathwatch!

In a savage post on his blog, the Netscape co-founder announces “I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.”

The diatribe was touched off by the announcement that arch-conservative Bill Kristol will become a Times columnist, but Andreessen has problems with the whole Times company, and he lists them with withering eloquence:

• Total quarterly revenues fell 1.7% compared to Q4 2006, adjusting for an additional week in the 2006 quarter;
• Ad revenue in December was off 25%
• Classified advertising fell off the table
• Circulation continues to decline at the NYT-owned Boston Globe – 7% in the last year;
• The Times’ regional papers are also suffering;
• Hedge funds are pressuring the Sulzbergers to sell;
• The board of directors knows nothing about publishing (this one is particularly funny).

Meanwhile, Dan Kennedy at The Guardian muses on the possibility that Google could buy the New York Times Co. It isn’t gonna happen, but it’s fun to speculate.

The Financial Times has all the gory financial details.

Jon Talton takes a bullet list approach to an analysis of what went wrong with newspapers. Some of his commentary is 20:20 hindsight, but there are some interesting insights here:

• Consolidation and monopolization made newspapers insular and risk-averse. Innovation doesn’t come from companies that are trying to preserve a dominant franchise;
• New ideas aimed at attracting non-readers (what some call the McPaper syndrome) distracted attention from the reporting that kept loyal readers. The result was a double whammy: those new audiences weren’t going to read anyway, and the traditional audiences became disenfranchised and left;
• Groupthink in top-heavy organizations created a generation of yes-men who implemented defensive strategies and didn’t question the status quote. In the 1990s, when newspapers needed bold ideas, they were being led by sheep.

Check out the lively discussion that follows. This blog post touched a nerve.

Wall Street to Daily Papers: ‘Drop Dead’ – The Nation, Jan. 24, 2008

[Eric Alterman’s piece on the sad state of newspaper publishing (owners don’t even try to spin their cost cut positively any more, he notes), includes these interesting factoids:

Gannett Eyes Another Student Newspaper – Chronicle.com, Jan. 23, 2008
[Gannett is buying student newspapers, perhaps because the major metro daily market has such a poor future. -Ed.]

Ledger’s death a window into speed reporting – Los Angeles Times, Jan. 22, 2008
[An LA Times blog looks at the chaos and misinformation that surrounded the death of 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger. Some readers have complained that this was shoddy journalism, but the blog points out that it’s really an evolution of news reporting in the online world. “If the public wants its information as raw and immediate as possible, it’ll have to get used to a few missteps along the way, and maybe even approach breaking stories with a bit of skepticism, like a good reporter would,” it notes. -Ed.]

Murdoch Retreats From All-Free WSJ.com – Media Post, Jan. 25, 2008
[Maybe that $65M revenue stream isn’t such a bad thing after all. -Ed.]

Don’t shoot the messengers – Reflections of a Newsosaur, Jan. 23, 2008
[Alan Mutter suggests that the financial situations at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Minneapolis Star Tribune are dire and that the owners could be close to defaulting on their debt. What to do? If the creditors come in to run the papers, they’ll simply slash budgets to restore profitability, but at what long-term cost? There are no clear solutions to this predicament. -Ed.]

Inquirer Publisher Seeks More Cost Cuts – AP, Jan. 23, 2008

Quoting: “The owners of Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers said they need tocut costs by an additional 10 percent or the company will face dire consequences…Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC would have trouble meeting debt payments if it doesn’t make changes…[A columnist says:] ‘We’ve gone through a series of economic cuts in the past years, and it is hard to see where they can cut further.’…One year ago, the company gave layoff notices to about 70 Inquirernewsroom employees, or 17 percent of the editorial staff, and laid off 34 people in advertising, or nearly 10 percent of the sales force.”

Inquirer Staffers React to Tierney’s “10 Percent” Threat – The Daily Examiner, Jan. 23, 2008
[The Philadelphia magazine website account adds some facts and color:

• The Guild is speculating that the threat of cuts is a bargaining tactic against the union;
• A Guild memo says executives “did not say what would happen if savings targets are not met, but made references to outsourcing jobs overseas.”
• One features writer asks “Who needs a Neighbors section when we could have the New Delhi Digest every day?”
• Quoting: “When Eagles head coach Andy Reid was suddenly scheduled to appear at an impromptu news conference, an editor went running through the newsroom looking for somebody, anybody, to cover it. ‘There are situations like that every day,’ says a staffer. -Ed.]

Metro – Sources: Globe will cut back staff, raise price – Metro, Jan. 24, 2008
[A strange media war is playing out in Boston, where the Globe and an alternative daily paper in which it owns a significant interest are competing with each other to scoop each other’s bad news. The Globe recently scooped the Metro in reporting the paper’s mounting losses. – Ed.]

Quoting: “The Boston Globe will soon announcecutbacks at the newspaper, including hundreds of layoffs, and anincrease in the per copy price of the paper to 75 cents as of Feb. 1,according to several sources inside and outside of the paper….The Globe saw a nearly 7 percent decrease — from 386,417 to 360,695 —in its daily circulation between Sept. 2006 and Sept. 2007.”

Globe says no big layoff coming — its Metro free paper got it wrong – Boston Business Journal, Jan. 24, 2008

[A Boston Globe spokesman says a report of impending layoffs of “hundreds” of Globe staffers published by Metro, a free paper in which the Globe owns a 49% stake, are false. However, his wording leaves plenty of wiggle room. The spokesman said the story is “factually incorrect” (how is this different from “incorrect?”) and that “There are no plans for a staff reduction of the size cited in the Metro.” His wording leaves leeway for the Globe to lay off up to 199 people and still call the Metro story incorrect. -Ed.]

The Sun May Be Getting Smaller, but We Won’t Give Ground On Local News – Kitsap Sun, Jan. 12, 2008

[The editor of the Kitsap Sun, which has been ravaged by staff cuts, declares his intention to continue the paper’s local news coverage. -Ed.]

After Job Cuts in 2007 — What’s Ahead? – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 15, 2008

[An E&P editor recaps the grim ledger from 2007, when US newspaper industry employment declined almost 3%. -Ed.]

Meanwhile, layoffs at the Chicago Sun-Times announced nearly a month ago continue to generate lots of coverage:

Sun-Times staffers get pink slips…by phone — chicagotribune.com, Jan. 23, 2008
[Management apparently just can’t wait to get laid-off staffers out the door. -Ed.]

Sun-Times wrestles with new reality – LATimes Pressmen Forums

No Quiet on Western Front: Latest on ‘L.A. Times’ Uproar – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 22, 2008
[E&P tries to figure out what really happened at the Los Angeles Times, where editor James O’Shea abruptly resigned this week. Publisher David Hiller called O’Shea’s exit after only 14 months a mutual decision, but reports of O’Shea’s speech to the newsroom indicates it was anything but. The EIC was reportedly asked to cut $7 million from his budget, which sparked a confrontation that led to his firing. Media-watchers are wondering what this says about new owner Sam Zell’s commitment to editorial quality. -Ed.]

Times editor to leave paper – Los Angeles Times, Jan. 21, 2008
[The LA Times plays it straight in covering the story, revealing little of what was said in the newsroom. – Ed.]

Text of James O’Shea’s Remarks on WSJ.com

O’Shea, Hutton Thrown From Speeding Rollercoaster – Content Bridge, Jan. 22, 2008

Veteran journalist Ken Doctor notes the departure of the fourth LA Times top editor in three years and laments the sorry state of the once-great Mercury News. There are 200,000 students in journalism programs in the US, he notes. What are they all going to do? Big metro dailies are plummeting like a speeding roller coaster, but the new media entities that may someday replace them are still too small to offer refuge. – Ed.]

Newspaper Editor’s Departure Is Troubling – U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 22, 2008

[A U.S. News columnist worries about what O’Shea’s firing means, but believes newspapers can weather their current crises. -Ed.]

Recovering Journalist: Another One Bites the Dust
[Mark Potts makes some good points about what’s wrong with traditional newspaper-think and why the industry needs to look outside for leadership. -Ed.]