http://angryjournalist.comAngryJournalist.com is for the underpaid, overworked, frustrated, pissed off and ignored media professionals to publicly and anonymously vent their anger. Share your story. With any luck, you’ll feel better.
The site has a simple prompt for visitors: Why are you angry today?
Anyone may write their rant about what’s causing them grief and publish it instantly for everyone to read. It appears anonymously — no e-mail or registration required. In a way, its purpose is two-fold. One, to give angry journalists a place to vent. Two, to let them know they’re not alone.
I created this site for several reasons. 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.
Couple this together with an industry that’s getting hammered by Wall Street. Stock prices are tumbling, circulation’s falling or remaining stagnant at best, advertising dollars in print aren’t being replaced by online revenues and the pressure increases from above to keep tightening belts and “do more with less.”
As they say, shit rolls downhill … right onto the front-line reporters, copy editors, page designers, photographers, etc. Odds are good these people didn’t create the problem, they just inherited it. And many of them are making sacrifices, pitching good ideas and trying to fix this aching industry.
Outside of these discussions with those I’d consider close colleagues, I also read this report by Dr. Scott Reinardy at Ball State University: Newspaper journalism in crisis: Burnout on the rise, eroding young journalists’ career commitment. The report’s results and conclusions are worth reading, and they reinforced some of the observations I’d made of my friends and acquaintances:
31 percent of young journalists (34 and younger) expressed intentions to leave the profession.
For those who expressed interest in leaving newspaper journalism, a follow-up question asked: “If you are intending to leave newspaper journalism, what would be the reason(s) for leaving?” Of the 223 journalists 34 and younger who said they intended to leave or answered “don’t know,” 36 percent said money or salary was the reason, 27 percent said hours or schedule and 19 percent said stress or burnout. Also, a reference to family life was mentioned in 13 percent of the responses.
The report includes some anecdotal stories from responses collected for the study and are worth reading as well.
The end of Reinardy’s conclusion includes this statement, which prompted me to think about where the industry is headed in the future:
So in an effort for newspapers to raise revenues, maintain circulation and provide readers with more information in more ways, another crisis might be upon us. Perhaps lost in this evolutionary period of newspaper journalism is the news worker. When he or she is no longer able, or no longer willing, to provide quality journalism, the journalism of crisis won’t be found on Wall Street or in the circulation data. It’ll be found in the newsroom.
After reflecting on this, it dawned on me that most publishers, managers, executives, etc., probably have no idea just how angry “trench” journalists are in their own newsroom.
But I suspect most of these journalists aren’t going to speak up. They’re low on the totem pole. They need to pay off their college loans and work long enough to put in a year or two until they can move on to another job. Some of them might feel it’s easier just to stay silent rather than be combative and confrontational.
Maybe they would blog about it, but that’s risky. What if their boss finds out? What if they’re punished for just pointing out the bullshit that their newspaper, station, organization is oblivious to? It’s too risky.
And that led to the third reason why I wanted to create AngryJournalist.com. I thought, “maybe if it became big enough, executives at media companies would take note and realize how frustrated their employees actually are in the industry and do something to change it.”
Granted, since it’s all anonymous, specific papers will never know they’re being discussed or ranted about (unless someone wants to name names, which I recommend against for obvious reasons), but the larger goal is to change the perception across the industry.
I’m not naive to think that one Web site will change everything, but hopefully it’ll spark discussion. Or at least be something that helps other journalists get through their week and know they’re all in this together. It’s an experiment and I’m curious to see where this goes.
So, feel free to join in. Read. Write. Share. Think. Feel better.
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