Journalists And Job Loss

Journalists and Job Loss explores the profound disruption of journalism work in the 21st century’s networked digital media environment. The chapters analyse how journalists have experienced and navigated job loss, re-employment, career change and career re-invention as traditional patterns of newsroom employment give way to occupational change, income insecurity and precarious work in journalism globally. The authors showcase the design, methodology and results of the New Beats project, a ground-breaking longitudinal study of change in the work of Australian journalists, as well as related case studies of job loss and career change in journalism based on research in different national settings across the global North and global South. The book also considers the wider implications of changes in journalism work for media sustainability, gender equity, and journalism work futures. The book provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis of job loss and the new contours of journalistic work in a critical political, cultural, economic, and social industry. It will be an important resource for researchers and students in disciplines including journalism, media and communication studies, business, and the social sciences in general.

The New Beats Report examines key findings from four annual surveys conducted between 2014 and 2017. The surveys focussed on whether, and how, those who left Australian media newsrooms between 2012 and 2014 adapted their traditional skills and remade their careers in digital media. The surveys tracked the experiences of those who had difficulty finding paid journalistic work, as well as those who chose to move to different industries.

This timely collection of essays analyses the crisis of journalism in contemporary South Africa at a period when the media and their role are frequently at the centre of public debate. The transition to digital news has been messy, random and unpredictable. The spread of news via social media platforms has given rise to political propaganda, fake news and a flattening of news to banality and gossip. Media companies, however, continue to shrink newsrooms, ousting experienced journalists in favour of 'content producers'. Against this backdrop, Daniels points out the contribution of investigative journalists to exposing corruption and sees new opportunities emerging to forge a model for the future of non-profit, public-funded journalism. Engaging and dynamic, the book argues for the power of public interest journalism, including investigative journalism, and a diversity of voices and positions to be reflected in the news. It addresses the gains and losses from decolonial and feminist perspectives and advocates for a radical shift in the way power is constituted by the media in the South African postcolony. A valuable introduction to the confusion that confronts journalism students, it has much to offer practising media professionals. Daniels uses her years of experience as a newspaper journalist to write with authority and illuminate complex issues about newsroom politics. Interviews with alienated media professionals and a semi-autobiographical lens add a personal element that will appeal to readers interested in the inner life of the media.

‘Journalism was a trade you could go into and if you were any good at it you were a reasonably prosperous member of the community ... that’s just no longer the case.’ — David Marr Journalists make a living out of telling other people's stories. Rarely are we shown a glimpse of their doubts and vulnerabilities, their hopes and fears for the future. It's time we hear this side of the story. Newsrooms, the engine rooms of reporting, have shrunk. The great digital disruption of the twentieth century has shattered newspapers, radio and television. Journalism jobs, once considered safe for life, have simply disappeared. Captivating yet devastating, Upheaval is an under-the-hood look at Australian journalism as it faces seismic changes. Sharing first-hand stories from Australia's top journalists — including David Marr, Amanda Meade, George Megalogenis and more — Upheaval reveals the highs and the lows of those who were there to see it all.

Former executive editor of The New York Times and one of our most eminent journalists Jill Abramson provides a “valuable and insightful” (The Boston Globe) report on the disruption of the news media over the last decade, as shown via two legacy (The New York Times and The Washington Post) and two upstart (BuzzFeed and VICE) companies as they plow through a revolution that pits old vs. new media. “A marvelous book” (The New York Times Book Review), Merchants of Truth is the groundbreaking and gripping story of the precarious state of the news business. The new digital reality nearly kills two venerable newspapers with an aging readership while creating two media behemoths with a ballooning and fickle audience of millennials. “Abramson provides this deeply reported insider account of an industry fighting for survival. With a keen eye for detail and a willingness to interrogate her own profession, Abramson takes readers into the newsrooms and boardrooms of the legacy newspapers and the digital upstarts that seek to challenge their dominance” (Vanity Fair). We get to know the defenders of the legacy presses as well as the outsized characters who are creating the new speed-driven media competitors. The players include Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron (The Washington Post), Arthur Sulzberger and Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), and Shane Smith (VICE) as well as their reporters and anxious readers. Merchants of Truth raises crucial questions that concern the well-being of our society. We are facing a crisis in trust that threatens the free press. “One of the best takes yet on journalism’s changing fortunes” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Abramson’s book points us to the future.

This book examines how journalism can overcome harmful institutional issues such as work-related trauma and precarity, focusing specifically on questions of what happiness in journalism means, and how one can be successful and happy on the job. Acknowledging profound variations across people, genres of journalism, countries, types of news organizations, and methodologies, this book brings together an array of international perspectives from academia and practice. It suggests that there is much that can be done to improve journalists’ subjective well-being, despite there being no one-size-fits-all solution. It advocates for a shift in mindset as much in theoretical as in methodological approaches, moving away from a focus on platforms and adaptation to pay real attention to the human beings at the center of the industry. That shift in mindset and approach involves exploring what happiness is, how happiness manifests in journalism and media industries, and what future we can imagine that would be better for the profession. Happiness is conceptualized from both psychological and philosophical perspectives. Issues such as trauma, harassment, inequality, digital security, and mental health are considered alongside those such as precarity, recruitment, emotional literacy, intelligence, resilience, and self-efficacy. Authors point to norms, values and ethics in their regions and suggest best practices based on their experience. Constituting a first-of-its-kind study and guide, Happiness in Journalism is recommended reading for journalists, educators, and advanced students interested in topics relating to journalists’ mental health and emotion, media management, and workplace well-being. This book is accompanied by an online platform which supports videos, exercises, reports and links to useful further reading.

Journalism's Lost Generation discusses how the changes in the industry not only indicate a newspaper crisis, but also a crisis of local communities, a loss of professional skills, and a void in institutional and community knowledge emanating from newsrooms. This text also provides a broad vie

Nothing stops The Spiritual Wanderer, as Rodney Curtis is known to readers far and wide from the title of his first humorous book about the many quirky challenges of life in America. Then, suddenly his life went from quirky to terrifying as he was hit with a double whammy: a layoff notice and a diagnosis of cancer. Many would have folded under the pressure, but Rodney’s approach to life remains undimmed. As he says in his introduction, he keeps laughing in the face of fear. Apparently, it works. He tackled cancer in his earlier book, A ‘Cute’ Leukemia, and now Rodney turns the full force of his relentlessly wacky vision on the challenges millions face in unemployment. He tells this true story through words and images—as well as audio and video you’ll enjoy through easy links in these pages. Here’s an example: As the story opens in Chapter 1, “I knew things weren’t good at my company when they closed down half the bathrooms in our building. The economy was going down the toilet, but we sure weren’t.” Then, as fear battles hope in the opening pages, a link offers Rodney’s recommended soundtrack for that chapter: a song from a popular movie that’s just a web link away and, soon, your toes will be tapping as you read. You’ll get hooked on the multi-media counterpoints and, when you’re done, you’ll be asking yourself: Why doesn’t every book have a soundtrack and movie clips? In the end, you’ll be glad that nothing stops Rodney Curtis—and that you can join him in this adventure. His high spirits are strong enough to lift yours, too.