Most journalists I know, especially those currently in the game, are multi-taskers, to say the least. I can’t think of anyone I know in a newsroom with only one job. Many people feel stretched thin and yet, they love the job so much that they find it difficult to walk away. Most of us have at least stretches that are like this.
In this vein, I stumbled upon something last weekend that fascinated me. The Poynter Institute is overseeing a crowdfunding campaign aimed at “fixing the broken newsroom.” The two Poynter staffers, Ren LaForme and Katie Hawkins-Gaar, overseeing it would find journalists who are presumably facing the same challenges most journalism professionals are facing today and interview them, sharing the advice they give in an effort to offer new approaches on how to deal with them.
The project, called “40 Better Hours” is short on specifics, but high on energy, if you check out the video. I had many questions about the presentation after I saw it and couldn’t decide how I felt about it. I still can’t. It’s great to see people recognizing that the newsroom culture right now is fairly unhealthy. The pressure can be overwhelming. The requirements keep shifting. Trying to maintain any organization or consistent schedule is basically impossible. But for years, that has just been accepted as a fact of life.
On the other hand, most journalists would say that if the leading contributor to the sickly newsroom culture is that properly staffing a newsroom – with an adequate number of staffers and the level of experience required to do this job. How do you change that?
Perhaps the most opinionated group of people I’ve ever met are journalists. I figured that posting this on social media would generate some spirited conversation. So I shared it on The Facebook and tweeted it, and … well, “meh” doesn’t do the response I received justice. A couple of former coworkers who have seen their share of newsroom shenanigans thought it was a bad idea (they used more colorful language), while another didn’t like the idea of supporting any project involving the Tampa Bay Times, which had just swallowed rival Tampa Bay Tribune in possibly the ugliest of ways, which could end in a lawsuit. But on the topic of improving newsroom culture, not a word. From journalists.
If you’ve never worked in a newsroom, it might be difficult to understand why this is so odd. Consider this: It takes at least 45 minutes to order any meal as a group in the newsroom. Where to go? What to get? “Why are you getting that?” “What the hell is that?” “I hate that place!” So having nothing to say about a problem that surely plagues every newsroom in the country right now is highly unusual.
I was able to tease some information out of a few people I work with, who expressed a bit of hope for the idea. But this effort is not buzzworthy among journalists right now – no one is talking about it. Journalists are also highly skeptical by nature, so it wouldn’t be surprising for most of them to express that. But not even that — well, except for two people.
In a “room” full of the most opinionated people I know, there’s almost complete silence. This is bad news for Ren and Katie. There’s only one reason intelligent, highly opinionated people don’t discuss something – because it doesn’t matter to them. In a sentence, journalists don’t care much about fixing newsroom culture because it’s not a thing they think can happen. Maybe, just maybe so many of them are beaten down by what’s happening to the industry that the idea that things can get better is more likely to draw out bitter feelings rather than hopeful ones.
It looks like Ren and Katie have met their initial $10,000 goal, so presumably we’ll start seeing what they come up with. The question is, “Will anyone be listening by then?”