Washington, This year has been bleak for journalism, with layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, NBC News, Forbes, National Geographic, Business Insider and Sports Illustrated.
More cuts are coming to newsrooms across the United States.
A growing number of reporters and editors, tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, are leaving the profession, citing burnout as the reason for their departure. When journalism scholars study the effects of body reduction In the press, they usually focus on how it harms civil society. Vast areas of the country are at risk of becoming “news deserts,” with limited access to trusted local journalism. This makes it difficult for people to make informed decisions and is linked to reduced political engagement, research shows. What's more, fewer journalists means less oversight of those who wield political and economic power.
But to me, those concerns – while important – ignore another issue, one that extends far beyond the news industry. As I argue with Sandra Vera-Zambrano in our new book, “The Journalist's Situation,” fewer and fewer people see a life in the news as a worthwhile career.
This reflects a broader problem: namely, the ways in which relentless economic pressures are driving people away from socially important careers. Meaning About Money
As an occupation, journalism is attractive to many people because they can be paid to do work that is interesting and socially beneficial.
In this sense, it is similar to otherwise very different jobs, such as nursing, teaching, social work, and caregiving. These are “vocations,” in the sense that sociologist Max Weber described them more than a century ago.
Grounded in strong personal commitments, vocations promise recognition and a sense of self-worth for doing work connected to broader values: healing people, fighting injustice, imparting knowledge, serving the cause of democracy.
While these jobs have never paid particularly well, people could get by and start families with them. This is becoming less and less the case. In all of these professions, recruitment and retention problems are so common that the term “crisis” is no longer an exaggeration.
Dreams collide with reality.
Journalism, in many ways, represents ground zero for the crisis facing contemporary vocations. On the one hand, salaries in the industry are stagnant.
With a median salary in 2023 of $57,500, journalists' salaries have not kept pace with inflation or jobs in public relations and corporate communications.
Job security, as the continued layoffs suggest, is almost non-existent. Recent campaigns to unionize newsrooms have done little to stem the losses and do nothing at all for the freelancers who make up a growing proportion of all journalists and , for the most part, do not belong to any union.
Inside or outside the newsroom, work usually involves longer hours and more demands.
And to what end? In many cases, it's to perform tasks that aren't all that interesting or socially valuable. Journalists we spoke to lamented the incessant demands to produce new content for websites and social media. They discussed using multimedia to report on topics that were assigned primarily for their potential to amuse and entertain, rather than to inform or provoke thought.
They complained about spending more time sitting at their desks reviewing press releases rather than collecting original reports from the field. And they described fewer and fewer opportunities to seek out stories that are personally interesting and socially valuable.
In this context, it is not surprising that many people decide to leave journalism or avoid a career in it altogether. Jobs in public relations pay substantially more, with a median annual salary of $66,750, and involve regular hours and more stability. To be sure, these alternative careers may not promise the same adventure and excitement of journalism. But that also means that people in that field are less likely to be frustrated by unmet expectations.
More surprising – and relevant to considering the crisis facing vocations more broadly – is the fact that so many people, despite these conditions, still find work in journalism attractive.
This call is not made naively. Surveys regularly show that aspiring journalists are well aware of the problems facing the industry. However, they are still willing to sacrifice better wages and job security for work that allows for self-expression and connects with broader values. Their persistence, despite these conditions, highlights something important about journalism and vocations in general: they are careers that provide rewards that cannot be reduced to money.
Progressive disillusionment
The enduring attraction of contemporary vocations clarifies the nature of the crisis. Unlike older vocations, such as the priesthood, many people still dream of being journalists, nurses, and teachers. But people who pursue these vocations today routinely find themselves exhausted and demoralized.
Nurses and caregivers are encouraged to eliminate “inefficiencies” so that the provision of care does not impede their employers' ability to make money. Teachers are tasked with imparting practical skills to students while becoming more “entrepreneurial” as budgets are cut. Journalists are asked to produce news that conforms to audience expectations, rather than challenging them.
Add to that low wages, and these conditions threaten to reduce the belief that such jobs are worthwhile. Many of the journalists we spoke to while researching our book find ways to manage the disappointments that come with doing work that it is in tension with what initially attracted them. Or they reorient their work to better fit the business needs of the profession.
The fact that so many persist in the profession – at least for a time – should not distract from the frustrations and dissatisfaction this produces.
At some point, the influence of market forces could erode interest in vocations to such an extent that they disappear altogether. In fact, some vocations today are probably based more on their idealized reputations on the big screen – in films like “Spotlight” and “Dead Poets Society” – than on the experiences of real reporters and professors in 2024. For now – and in the foreseeable future – the most likely thing is not disinterest, but the struggle to make a career in these fields. This is not just the failure of a profession overtaken by commercial considerations. It is a reflection of a society unable to satisfy its citizens' basic desires to find meaning through the work they do. (The conversation) GRS
GRS
More cuts are coming to newsrooms across the United States.
A growing number of reporters and editors, tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, are leaving the profession, citing burnout as the reason for their departure. When journalism scholars study the effects of body reduction In the press, they usually focus on how it harms civil society. Vast areas of the country are at risk of becoming “news deserts,” with limited access to trusted local journalism. This makes it difficult for people to make informed decisions and is linked to reduced political engagement, research shows. What's more, fewer journalists means less oversight of those who wield political and economic power.
But to me, those concerns – while important – ignore another issue, one that extends far beyond the news industry. As I argue with Sandra Vera-Zambrano in our new book, “The Journalist's Situation,” fewer and fewer people see a life in the news as a worthwhile career.
This reflects a broader problem: namely, the ways in which relentless economic pressures are driving people away from socially important careers. Meaning About Money
As an occupation, journalism is attractive to many people because they can be paid to do work that is interesting and socially beneficial.
In this sense, it is similar to otherwise very different jobs, such as nursing, teaching, social work, and caregiving. These are “vocations,” in the sense that sociologist Max Weber described them more than a century ago.
Grounded in strong personal commitments, vocations promise recognition and a sense of self-worth for doing work connected to broader values: healing people, fighting injustice, imparting knowledge, serving the cause of democracy.
While these jobs have never paid particularly well, people could get by and start families with them. This is becoming less and less the case. In all of these professions, recruitment and retention problems are so common that the term “crisis” is no longer an exaggeration.
Dreams collide with reality.
Journalism, in many ways, represents ground zero for the crisis facing contemporary vocations. On the one hand, salaries in the industry are stagnant.
With a median salary in 2023 of $57,500, journalists' salaries have not kept pace with inflation or jobs in public relations and corporate communications.
Job security, as the continued layoffs suggest, is almost non-existent. Recent campaigns to unionize newsrooms have done little to stem the losses and do nothing at all for the freelancers who make up a growing proportion of all journalists and , for the most part, do not belong to any union.
Inside or outside the newsroom, work usually involves longer hours and more demands.
And to what end? In many cases, it's to perform tasks that aren't all that interesting or socially valuable. Journalists we spoke to lamented the incessant demands to produce new content for websites and social media. They discussed using multimedia to report on topics that were assigned primarily for their potential to amuse and entertain, rather than to inform or provoke thought.
They complained about spending more time sitting at their desks reviewing press releases rather than collecting original reports from the field. And they described fewer and fewer opportunities to seek out stories that are personally interesting and socially valuable.
In this context, it is not surprising that many people decide to leave journalism or avoid a career in it altogether. Jobs in public relations pay substantially more, with a median annual salary of $66,750, and involve regular hours and more stability. To be sure, these alternative careers may not promise the same adventure and excitement of journalism. But that also means that people in that field are less likely to be frustrated by unmet expectations.
More surprising – and relevant to considering the crisis facing vocations more broadly – is the fact that so many people, despite these conditions, still find work in journalism attractive.
This call is not made naively. Surveys regularly show that aspiring journalists are well aware of the problems facing the industry. However, they are still willing to sacrifice better wages and job security for work that allows for self-expression and connects with broader values. Their persistence, despite these conditions, highlights something important about journalism and vocations in general: they are careers that provide rewards that cannot be reduced to money.
Progressive disillusionment
The enduring attraction of contemporary vocations clarifies the nature of the crisis. Unlike older vocations, such as the priesthood, many people still dream of being journalists, nurses, and teachers. But people who pursue these vocations today routinely find themselves exhausted and demoralized.
Nurses and caregivers are encouraged to eliminate “inefficiencies” so that the provision of care does not impede their employers' ability to make money. Teachers are tasked with imparting practical skills to students while becoming more “entrepreneurial” as budgets are cut. Journalists are asked to produce news that conforms to audience expectations, rather than challenging them.
Add to that low wages, and these conditions threaten to reduce the belief that such jobs are worthwhile. Many of the journalists we spoke to while researching our book find ways to manage the disappointments that come with doing work that it is in tension with what initially attracted them. Or they reorient their work to better fit the business needs of the profession.
The fact that so many persist in the profession – at least for a time – should not distract from the frustrations and dissatisfaction this produces.
At some point, the influence of market forces could erode interest in vocations to such an extent that they disappear altogether. In fact, some vocations today are probably based more on their idealized reputations on the big screen – in films like “Spotlight” and “Dead Poets Society” – than on the experiences of real reporters and professors in 2024. For now – and in the foreseeable future – the most likely thing is not disinterest, but the struggle to make a career in these fields. This is not just the failure of a profession overtaken by commercial considerations. It is a reflection of a society unable to satisfy its citizens' basic desires to find meaning through the work they do. (The conversation) GRS
GRS
