Belgian Journalists in Lockdown: Survey on Employment and Working Conditions and Representations of Their Role

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted an important paradox: it has reminded us of the importance of the news media and the central place it occupies in the public space in times of crisis. At the same time, it has showed the major difficulties the industry faces in Belgium and elsewhere in the world. The lockdown disrupted the employment and practices of many journalists in ways that may reveal the contemporary tensions between professional identity and working conditions more clearly than in average news cycles. In order to understand what the Belgian French-speaking journalists went through during the first lockdown, we conducted a survey about the implications of the crisis for their employment status and work practices. This survey also covered their perceptions concerning their social role, their journalistic skills and the quality of their work covering the COVID-19 crisis. The responses show a sharp contrast between very challenging working conditions (isolation, lack of expertise and job losses in the worst cases) and the satisfaction that comes from the social contribution of their reporting. In order to interpret the results, we suggest to consider the theory of valuation as a relevant framework to understand the attachment of journalists to their work and how they practise it.

Care(lessness) in precarious journalism, before and during the pandemic: Freelancers’ work-life experiences and coping strategies

“…Emerging research on the working and living conditions of journalists during the pandemic suggests an intensification of preexisting trends, such as income losses and increased workloads, with the added difficulty of working from home during lockdowns (Rick & Hanitzsch, 2023). Journalists with children, and women more so than men, perceived reconciling family life and domestic work with professional activities in the same physical space as a major challenge (Libert et al, 2022). Feelings of loneliness and isolation were pervasive, as the journalists missed interacting with colleagues and sources (ibid.).…”

Newswork in crisis: Sourcing patterns during COVID-19 through a ‘lived experience’ perspective

“…Almost unanimously in both countries, journalists reported limited access to information confirming relevant research (Libert et al, 2022). Social distancing and lockdowns made it very difficult for journalists to access their sources.…”

Communicating with the masses from isolation: What happened when local television journalists worked from home

“…Social isolation means that workers feel personally disconnected from coworkers and their supervisor. A survey of Belgian journalists during COVID found many reported social isolation [11], a feeling repeated in many other settings [12]. It has been found that the type of job can moderate feelings of isolation.…”

“…A possible outcome of the broad shift to WFH is increased acceptance of the blurring of family into work times and spaces [18]. However, the flexibility that comes with telework can also cause frustration because of the difficulties in dividing time between work and family [11,18,19] and an inability to know when to stop working [7,19]. It seems like a paradox, where on one side teleworkers feel less stressed working from home in comparison to working from the office because of their ability to have more control.…”

“…Losses include the opportunity for informal one-on-one interaction both for work and for personal reasons (e.g., a walk with a colleague between shows or time in a bar after work). The latter provided enculturation as well as emotional support in coping with the stresses of the job, which were of course exacerbated by the pandemic [11]. News directors noted: "People felt very isolated and it was difficult to figure out how to help them through that."…”