Thursday, January 17, 2008

Do You Feel Burned Out? Journalists Are At Risk, Study Says

According to a study by Dr. Scott Reinardy of Ball State University [via Gawker]:
"With a moderate rate of exhaustion, a high rate of cynicism and a moderate rate of professional efficacy, burnout among journalists demonstrate higher rates of burnout than previous work. Additionally, journalists expressing intentions to leave the profession...demonstrated high rates of exhaustion and cynicism, and moderate rates of professional efficacy, making them “at-risk” for burnout. Also, 74.5 percent of journalists 34 and younger...expressed intentions to either leave newspaper journalism or answered “don’t know.” The most “at-risk” to burnout appear to be young copy editors or page designers working at small newspapers."


What does this all mean? Time for more sunlight, like those photographers. Oh, and this:

"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."
Happy Thursday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The industry has to do something about this otherwise it is going to become very amateurish if experienced professionals are leaving for better things.

Rob