New York Times: early burnout risk for young Online news journalists

If you’re feeling the strain from constant deadlines and draining every resource you have to find something new to break to your readers, you may take some solace from the fact that you are far from alone.

When the Washington-based Politico’s two top editors sent their reporters an email on April Fools’ Day last year saying that they would be required to start at 5am, not everyone saw the funny side, reports The New York Times. One girl even started crying.

This, says the report, is just one indication of the early burnout that young journalists can suffer in the online news business where, they say, the pressure of meeting a deadline for a paper can now be felt at any point of the day where the emphasis can be on getting something out as fast as possible before your rivals get the scoop.

It describes how the vibe of the newsroom is now “frantic and fatigued” with young reporters chained to their computers, rather than living the romantic notion of travelling the globe in pursuit of a story, to write articles that will “impress Google algorithms” and “draw readers their way”.

Like with The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times displays a “most viewed” list on its 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.

It’s perhaps a familiar tale of woe and one that adds fuel to the fires of those who argue that journalism quality will suffer as focus shifts to the numbers rather than the stories.

But, as Politico’s Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris told The New York Times: “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.”

Politico may not be a harbinger but when next you feel your head dropping towards your chest as you rush to break the latest news, you can at least stop and think - to borrow a phrase from our new Prime Minister - “we are in this together”.

(With thanks to Heather Chin for link)

A tale of caution

We start this week with a reminder that breaking news can be a dangerous career move. The Tabloid Watch blog is just one of many highlighting the resultant egg-on-face for hapless Daily Mail hack Richard Ashmore.

Ashmore fell foul of a spoof Twitter account set up for Apple CEO Steve Jobs and wrote a story based on one of the tweets. Not only did he apparently fail to spot the disclaimer, pointing out that the account was a parody, but also apparently failed to bother to check any basic facts with Apple themselves.

The article was swiftly removed when the error was pointed out. Now, it seems fairly clear that Ashmore has been a bit of a plonker for seemingly failing to do even the most basic of factchecking, but surely it also reminds us about the fine balance between good quality journalism and stealing a march on your competitors in a 24/7 digital age.

At a time where redundancies are rife and getting audiences for your advertisers seems paramount, you can feel a little spark of sympathy for someone thinking they'd managed to break what would have been a major scoop if only it were, um, even vaguely true.

So whilst Ashmore will probably have derisive laughter echoing in his ears for quite some time, perhaps we should take on board the lesson of the dire consequences when either time pressures or plain laziness stop you from doing your job properly.