In July, we invited laid-off and bought-out journalists to reflect on their experience in the form of a letter to colleagues. Now we are issuing a similar invitation to the young people who’ve come into the profession in the last five years or so, and the young journalism students who soon will. We invite them to air their concerns and hopes about journalism, too. The central questions: What do you see in this business that makes you still want to pursue it? How do you imagine people will get quality news five years down the road? How will you try to fit in? Send your submissions to editors@cjr.org. We’ll publish these periodically under the headline “Starting Thoughts,” and we’ll archive everything we publish here.
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I love your chipper attitude, but I'm curious how you plan to support yourself. It may be an exciting time in some ways -- especially for those people who wanted to be reporters but were previously left out of the mix -- but do you kids plan do this, say, for a few years (until your tired of ramen) and then get a "real" job? In addition to the technological revolution, which is great, there's an economic revolution that's not so great: there will no longer be a cohort of journalists who can do this for a living. I agree that it's going to be a lovely hobby that more people can enjoy, but along with that is the destruction of a career path. Are you okay with that?
Posted by DahliaR on Wed 19 Nov 2008 at 04:46 PM
Great but ... Just one thing I always want to add to stories like this. ONLINE IS NOT THE PROVINCE OF THE "YOUNG." It is not just the "newest generation of reporters rekindling ..." My husband and I are both well into what used to be called "middle age" and we run a community news website that has many of the attributes Erin describes above. Not only are we "oldsters" running it - much of our "readership" (I prefer to call them "collaborators" because they collaborate in exactly the way described above, through e-mail, comments, tips, forum posts, etc.) is way beyond their twenties. I just spoke, by invitation, to a local seniors' group - and of course started by asking who was familiar with our site - not only did I get "hands up" from almost everyone in the room, I also got a lot of "are you kidding? it's the first thing I look at it in the morning and the last thing I look at at night." Please, please, can we stop framing old media vs. new media as old vs. young ... the opportunities are there for everyone (and I encourage other former "conventional media" journalists to hop into the community-news pool - it's a blast - I quit my job voluntarily but that still left me on the same footing of those of you who have been downsized - armed with a great deal of experience and savvy that I use every minute of every day). Good luck to all - of all ages.
Posted by Tracy @ WSB on Wed 19 Nov 2008 at 04:47 PM
It's a little bit sad that a reporter who develops sources beyond the prison's public information officer is considered innovative enough to warrant a column.
Gumshoeing, spending times with people on your beat, drinking with them, going out for coffee with them, establishing a rapport with your sources, that's what journalism is supposed to be about.
Maybe the Internet is bringing back a basic tenet of journalism that never should have gone away in the first place.
Posted by Marizco on Wed 19 Nov 2008 at 09:38 PM
Boy, I can't wait until that moment when a massive snow storm hits Colorado and the power goes out....and then what? Oh, you can't distribute your online stuff anymore....
While no one doubts the future of journalism is online, just wait until a disaster unfolds in your community to figure out how hard it is get information out when the cellphone towers are down and the lights are out. Think I'm making this up? Ask the people of Biloxi, Miss how they got their news for days on end in the aftermath of Katrina.
Every medium has its pros and cons. Immediacy is a wonderful thing, but it also leads to mistakes and sloppy errors. And at the end of the day I wouldn't have read any of the convention stories this year because I watched it on TV. Newspapers were irrelevant not because the store was late, but because they were covering a staged news event that had no drama.
I just wonder what you will think when in the name of efficiency that Dean Stapleton gets his wish and every city council meeting is covered by someone watching it on the web in India. No context, no digging, just boring recitation of the facts as presented on screen.
Of course, you too will be out of job as well.
And then maybe, just maybe, you will have figured that no one at the top of journalism really cares about anything that money.
Posted by Get a clue on Wed 19 Nov 2008 at 11:46 PM
Tracy@WSB, I hear you. What is your site? I'm intrigued
Posted by Carol on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 08:50 AM
@DahliaR:
Well, I don't think I can really speak for “us kids,” but I can speak for myself. I actually think you're right when you discuss the destruction of journalism as a means for making a sustainable living. Sure, I would love to have reporting be a lucrative job. I would love to have the numerous journalists I've worked with evaluated for their hard work rather than the bottom line. I would love to be able to support a family with the craft. But I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon. Despite this, I'm don't need anyone's permission to write and produce news content, even if I have to work another occupation to have the resources to do it. That's not to say it's easy. As many of my colleagues know, theres no better way to silence a good journalist than to stop paying him or her.
@Tracy
Certainly the Internet is not exclusive to “youth” or the “young” and I didn't mean to insinuate that was the case. However, I do believe that the Web is the most important medium for reporters who are just starting out, and they usually are younger. But that's not to say veterans like yourself are oblivious to it. Quite the contrary as you clearly demonstrate. Also, I like your "collaborators” description. That's exactly what I'm talking about and it's refreshing to see someone that gets it.
@Marizco
This column isn't about going beyond a public information officer. It's about using the Internet as a tool to better cull sources so one can actually accomplish the tenet you cite with limited resources and funds.
That said, I thinks there's an idea of what journalism should be (something that is usually harped on by academics in the field) and then there's reality. I don' t know what newsrooms you've worked in, but I don't know any reporters who have just one beat anymore. It's more like two or three. Nor do they have the time to go chumming around with their sources as their newsroom and psychical paper/broadcast size continue to shrink. It may seem like a tragedy to you, this severe lapse in “gumshoeing,” and perhaps you're right. But in my experience news outlets just aren't supporting that right now.
So how do I get around this? By culling my sources from the net and keeping in touch with them via phone, text, Twitter or E-mail. If you have a problem with that, that's fine. But it's what I've got to work with.
@Get a clue
I'm not saying that all journalism must depend solely on the Internet, I'm saying that it's the most important medium for new reporters. Obviously in natural disasters and weather situations the reporting game changes, but in an urban city one usually doesn't have to worry about that for too long. The power has gone out in Colorado before, and I can assure you that online paper I used to work for survived, along with our daily news coverage.
I don't agree when you talk about “mistakes and sloppy errors” relating to the Internet. The fact is those things can happen anywhere, in print, online or on television. It's important to have an ethics policy, but the truth is any journalist on any medium can choose to ignore it.
And I also don't agree with your depiction of the DNC as a “staged news event.” For the actual working reporters who were on the ground, there were many interesting and investigative stories. For instance, there was the fact that the local police were blatantly refusing to disclose what equipment they were buying with millions in federal security funds, stating that it was “not in the public interest.” I broke that story and the ACLU later filed a subsequent and unrelated lawsuit that forced the city to be more transparent. And that's just one instance of my former newspaper's coverage.
I'm not aware of who Dean Stapelton is. Do you mean Dean Singleton?
Posted by Erin Rosa on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 08:56 AM
Erin,
I agree with a lot of what you say in this article, but to someone like me in his or her early thirties -- not "young" per say, but not a veteran, either -- what is going on in the world of publishing is very scary. I graduated with a degree in magazine journalism and started my career as a magazine editor and writer in NY. After about 5 years, however, I was forced to take a job in PR because I simply couldn't support myself in an editorial position. Being a writer and a business journalist was one of the most rewarding jobs I've had, but it also required that I work long hours for extremely little pay, for trade publications that weren't exactly read by the masses. I perfected the art of feature writing -- an art that is now dying a slow death.
I am currently a marketing copywriter. Unfortunately, the only road back to editorial is to become a content writer for an online venture, which means I now have to spend more money to take the classes I need to retrain myself to say what I was saying in a four-page feature in a four-sentence paragraph. Yes, I know this is what happens in changing times. But my point is that while change can be exciting and presents opportunity, the current changes also present major challenges for people trying to make a living doing what they studied for years and know best.
Posted by Deville on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 09:33 AM
Yeeeeesh, the crabbed tone of many of the responses to Erin's piece are embarrassing. As a reporter for High Church MSM--the New York Times--I am invigorated by all the young, smart, committed people still flocking into this bizarro world profession. As for sourcing, c'mon. You can drink late with sources and that's fine and grand if ruinous to the liver, or you can meet a pol over steak, or talk with a prison guard over vegan wraps, (well, you get the point ... ). Or you chat intensely into the web ether for a couple hours. It's all reporting, and it all be grand.
The key, of course, is to get out of the office, to knock on doors, to go talk to people in addition to working sources. There are plenty of rummy old cop reporters who just passed along the cop line. In reading Erin's account, I was heartened to see both impulses at work--sourcing via the web--and getting "out there". We--I was at the Washington Post at the time--did much the same when the Republican Convention brought out the inner authoritarian in the NYC Police Department, and it led an immediacy and, frankly, a proper sense of outrage to much of the coverage.
As for the economics, well, that's a much thornier question. Journalism is ever replenished by committed young people with a desire to change the world and a willingness to work for appallingly poor wages. The underground/alternative press of the 60s, 70s and 80s thrived on that impulse.
But, as some of the posters note, that is not enough to sustain us. There was in the past at least a career path. One could move, as I did, from working on community and alternative magazines to newspapers, with modest if real salaries and benefits. Right now, those paths are obscured by the implosion of the business structure of the corporeal newspapers. I sense (hope? Pray?) that this will sort itself out, over time, and I can only hope that we can retain this great reservoir of young talent until then. Certainly there are no lack of outrages in this world to report on.
drinks with sources and all that is fine, but there's also nothing wrong with -- and in fact everything right -- with working web ether to find sources. The story of reporting out the prison disturbances was terrific, as prisons are chronically undercovered and difficult to penetrate, particularly these Orwellian high tech versions.
Posted by Michael Powell on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 10:27 AM
The only paper I've ever worked at where there weren't specific beat reporters was a 2,000 circulation weekly. And I don't know any reporters who don't have their own beat at any paper in the country.
But that's besides the point. The curses falling on modern journalism are two-fold: reporters who don't leave the newsroom and those who engage in pack journalism. Kudos to you for developing sources outside the fold. But I still think it's sad that this is regarded as something special.
Posted by Marizco on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 11:13 AM
Marizco
I can't speak for your experience, but I've observed a steady erosion of substantive beat reporting, much of it driven by the economics of our business.(And in truth some of it was driven by the increasing upper middle class tilt of of many in our business, but that's another battle) When I came to the Washington Post in 1996, there were two reporters covering the national poverty beat and one of the better labor reporters in the country. Three years later, there were no poverty reporters and no labor reporter. At every paper in the country, city hall and police shack beats are being whacked back like so many weeds. I was the City Hall bureau chief for NY Newsday in 1994, covering Giuliani with a staff of five. Three years later NYN folded. The NYT
at that time had a bureau of five reporters; now it's three. The Daily News had five then; now it's two or three. And so on.
The fact is that most beat reporters are covering "beats" so large as to make it very difficult to do sustained beat coverage. Nor, I must say, do I detect in Erin's comments any suggestion that she is special; most of us got into this not terribly well paying business out of a sense of public service, of wanting to change the world. Over time, the economics and stress of the business can erode that, like rain on a cliff wall. So it's that much more important that we replenish our ranks, and figure out a way to pay people for that pleasure.
Posted by Michael Powell on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 11:57 AM
Erin -
I love that you have provoked this much discussion on such an important topic, and I'm very pleased to see someone writing about what an exciting time it is to be a journalist.
However, in addition to the "old vs. young" divisiveness, I wish we could avoid the "all academics are out of touch" overgeneraliztions.
Many of the things we now know about the Web and online journalism (in fact the very Web itself) can be attributed in whole or in part to the academics you seem to scorn when you make comments such as this:
"I thinks there's an idea of what journalism should be (something that is usually harped on by academics in the field) and then there's reality."
The solution to journalism's current crisis will be found if and when more of us spend time reinventing our role in society and the marketplace and less time arguing about who "gets it" and who doesn't.
Posted by DebW on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 03:54 PM
I recently graduated (last May) with a graduate degree in International Affairs with a concentration in international media. I've had two short-term freelance jobs, good gigs working on public affairs documentaries, since graduating. I'm finished with both projects and am again looking for work. Although I'm apprehensive of where exactly my next job is going to come from, I'm still incredibly optimistic and would have to agree with Erin that this is an exciting time to be a journalist.
I've always thought one of a journalist's main jobs was to keep their finger on the pulse of their audience and to report the trends that it identifies. The tools of the new media such as Twitter, Digg, and RSS feeds, to name only a few, make it that much easier to see those trends. And access to extremely effective information gathering tools allows journalists to provide their audiences with information about stories their audiences might not have been able to identify on their own.
I'd agree that currently the pay stinks. The latest poll on the starting salaries of journalists conducted by the University of Georgia put median pay at 30,000 for those just completing their undergraduate degree and at 40,000 for those with graduate degrees.
But it's obviously not pay that is driving those entering journalism today. The same survey showed that 42.7% were "very satisfied" with their jobs, not a ringing endorsement to be sure, but the highest ever reported since the survey was started in the late 1980s.
I personally decided to change careers to journalism because of job satisfaction. I'd been working for years as a translator, and I was well paid but bored out of my skull. Now I'm poorly paid but have never been happier. And I'm confident I'll eventually climb back to a comfortable salary within the next five years, and even more sure I'll remain very satisfied with my choice.
Before I get to that comfortable level of living, I'm sure there will be difficult times. New technology that allows anyone with a computer to generate content is affecting journalism as globalism is affecting manufacturing. A huge increase in output has caused a simultaneous decrease in the price. But I really am confident that once the new media convulsion has finished, people will always be willing to pay for quality information and that those journalists who can master the tools of the new information landscape will be always be able to make a comfortable living.
Posted by Aaron on Thu 20 Nov 2008 at 08:11 PM
@Carol - westseattleblog.com
@Get a clue - Funny you use that example. That is exactly what catapulted us from being a classic blog, to becoming a blog-format news site. One year after I started our site, originally intending it to be a chatty "here's what I saw around the 'hood" type of thing, our area was smacked by a huge windstorm. In particular, our part of the city had thousands out of power. (At our house, the power was out for four days.) Our section of Seattle is something of a bedroom community, so even the outage victims were still going to work somewhere else each day and getting online there, but wondering what was going on and when their power would return. I was frustrated myself at not being able to get neighborhood-specific information. And some of our readers e-mailed to ask if we knew anything. So we decided to do whatever we could to get neighborhood-specific info - in some cases, driving around looking for the power crews. Online information is more accessible than you would think. Some people told us they called relatives outside the area and had them access our site and read the latest updates over the phone. Other people had laptops, batteries, and aircards. Yet others accessed from work or from internet cafes.
At the time this all hit, we didn't even have a wireless card for our old (not built-in) laptop, so we went to a friend's house, and to an internet cafe, to post our updates, before realizing we could buy a card for cheap. Now, of course, our site is a business, with a very serious commitment to 24/7 neighborhood news coverage, and we have all sorts of redundant equipment and access. But if that all went to hell, there are backups - we worked with neighborhood groups this summer who decided on designated "gathering places" that will have info kiosks if something horrible happens - if there is a time that somehow I can't get online, I suspect I'll be one of those people running around gathering info and getting it to those kiosks. (Ever see "Testament" - the old guy with the ham radio, and his teen protege on the bicycle? Extreme example, but same deal.)
Posted by Tracy @ WSB on Fri 21 Nov 2008 at 12:33 AM
@Deville
The point is well taken.
As my colleague Jim Spencer wrote in his the Parting Thoughts column on CJR, “I still want journalism. Journalism just doesn’t seem to want me.” It's a real tragedy that someone like Jim and countless others like him can't afford to do reporting anymore. I'm not even sure if I can make a living off of it. It can be somewhat scary, especially for those unlike me who have invested decades of their lives to the craft. And I'm certainly not trying to trivialize that. The news industry is in the doldrums right now and I really don't have the answers to fix it. But I would hope from my experience at least, people will understand that there are cracks of light from beneath the proverbial floor boards.
@Marizco
I'm not saying there aren't beat reporters. I'm saying they have multiple beats now. For instance, when I was working at my last paper I covered labor, corrections, immigration, various political districts and government transparency issues. If I thought my column was only about reporting beyond government communiques, then yes, I would agree with you that it's nothing special. But as you can read, that's not the crux of my article.
@DebW
Fair enough. My bias of academics is shining though, and I won't deny it. It's just extremely frustrating to hear established professors lament the eroding prestige of the craft when they haven't actually worked on the ground as a reporter in years or even decades. Then they go on to disparage those who are working.
It's really easy to criticize journalism from a stable tenured position, even though many often do absolutely nothing to solve the problems they like to rail on. That's what I don't like. Of course as we both know, generalizations are not logical and I know that not all professors are like that. It's just really difficult to address this “crisis” when you see so many who are secretly reveling in it. But to those academics who are honestly trying to pass along the craft and improve it, I am proud to call them my allies and friends.
Posted by Erin Rosa on Fri 21 Nov 2008 at 12:08 PM
I just got my hip replaced so forgive me if I sound a bit cranky when I say that the internet is killing an art form of journalism in the print. There is too much variety, too much traffic and nobody can tell me where a reliable source is. I hate thinking for myself!
Linking to original sources via "hotlink" is inappropriate because its cool. Its about the coolest thing I have ever seen. Journalism is supposed to be slow and loaded with advertisements.
Where is the bathroom in here?
Can't I just go outside like I did when I was a kid? Those were the good 'ol days.
Posted by Cranky Dinosaur on Fri 21 Nov 2008 at 10:00 PM
Is there anything about a city that isn't urban? The copy editor in me cringes at that one. It doesn't matter where you publish, online or on paper -- 1. honest reporting and 2. good writing transcends the media. From your essay, I'd say you're on your way to achieving the first ... from your use of language to defend your position, I observe there's work to be done in honing the craft.
Posted by Jane on Sun 28 Dec 2008 at 10:29 PM
Frankly Jane, if the only thing you can find to complain about is my redundancy than I'm doing a lot better than I thought!
Posted by Erin Rosa on Wed 31 Dec 2008 at 12:23 AM