Young Online Reporters Overworked and Burning Out
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The frantic pace of online journalism is contributing to high turnover in the field, low morale and a culture that prizes page views and breaking news over in-depth analysis, reports The New York Times.
The trend began with cable news channels and their 24-hour news cycle. With the advent of internet journalism and the explosion of virtual content and the blogosphere, reporters working at online news outlets need to compete for attention in an environment that grows ever-more cluttered, which means tighter deadlines and longer hours.
“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,” said Duy Linh Tu, coordinator of the digital media program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “I worry about burnout.”
Anxiety about market share and audience retention fuels the race.
"Politico editors talk about losing their audience as if it could happen at any moment. “Everybody in the audience is his or her own editor based on where they want to move their mouse or their finger on the iPad,” said the editor in chief, John F. Harris. “And if you’re not delivering to that reader, you’re going to lose them.”
So keep browsing the site; page views are important, after all.
(Photo credit: Stefano Corso; C.C. 3.0)
