Newspaper reporter? Worst job in America? Really?
The very notion invites a sarcastic response. What could possibly be more enjoyable than standing up to your knees in raging floodwater, the thrilling hours spent in school board meetings, waiting four hours in a damp courthouse for a jury verdict, or being stonewalled at every turn by cops and politicians?
Yet some of us love it. Journalism brings you into contact with any numbers of fascinating people, and reporters can have some remarkable experiences, not to mention plenty of chances to do some genuine good in the world. There is only one real problem with the newspaper world, and it has nothing to do with the Internet or "citizen journalists" and their spectacular ability to get things wrong.
Newspapers cannot be operated as profit centers. Newspapers cannot be exploited to their maximum profit potential without destroying their character, integrity or reason for being.
Newspapers are not like other industries. These jobs can't be outsourced to China. Expertise matters, and especially judgment. You need first-rate writers and analysts to communicate complex information in a comprehensible manner. You need to spend time and money to create a good product and to properly serve the paper's readership.
Well, a lot of newspapers just don't do that anymore. Forty-hour weeks are enforced. Unless a reporter is willing to be put on salary at low pay; $14 an hour is not uncommon. The newspaper's institutional memory, in the form of longtime reporters who have built relationships with the people and the communities they serve, are unceremoniously dumped in favor of recent college graduates who will work for low pay and seriously believe their hard work will result in advancement.
This was illustrated on an edition of WAMC's "The Media Project," during which the A.J. Clements affair came up. Clements was the North Dakota TV anchor who had apparently made it out of college without knowing that the little red sign glowing on the wall reading "ON AIR" meant his microphone was on. For connoisseurs of profanity, his debut newscast was a memorable moment.
One of the commentators said, "They looked like they just walked out of class."
Actually, they had. I know a case in point. My last editor fired me on a trivial excuse in order to give my job to an inexperienced 21-year-old girl with a recent degree in sportswriting. At the time, I was the paper's most productive and experienced reporter.
Too many corporate executives really think all you have to do is make a couple of phone calls and then write something. But some stories need time to develop properly. I worked at one paper that demanded two full stories a day, as well as three briefs, but only allowed us 40 hours a week in which to do that. For the money most file clerks make. You get what you pay for.
Finally, there is the issue of job security. Unless the paper is unionized, there isn't any. Couple that with states allowing at-will employment, and you have the situation I described above. At-will employment essentially legalizes age discrimination. The corporations that have absorbed our newspapers take full advantage of it.
Stephen Seitz is an author and journalist based in Vermont. His most recent novel, "Secrets Can't Be Kept Forever," is set at a New England newspaper.