Employment Conditions in Journalism

Abstract

Amid the rise of atypical and casual employment across economic sectors and the decline in profits taking place in media organizations internationally, the conditions under which journalists work are changing and, for many, worsening. The number of employed journalists has declined significantly since the late 20th century, and the real salaries of the remaining journalists have decreased or remained mostly stagnant. Female journalists, freelancers, and online journalists are paid (often significantly) less than male employees working for traditional media. These trends are particularly well documented for the United States, but they are international in scope. Although job satisfaction is traditionally robust among journalists, it is starting to decline, as some studies have indicated, together with the perceived level of autonomy over the labor process. Although those who continue to hold permanent jobs in news organizations do journalism from a position of having a steady income and social security, a growing number of freelancers work for multiple clients, experience fluctuating incomes, and must shoulder greater risks (such as legal challenges potentially arising from their reporting). Staff journalists encounter increased workloads in newsrooms as they take on the tasks of laid-off colleagues. Freelancers, on the other hand, find it increasingly difficult to earn enough from doing journalism alone and take on secondary jobs or assignments, including in public relations. Their stress is more related to ensuring that they have ongoing work; juggling multiple jobs; and doing self-promotion, administrative work, and budget planning on top of journalism. Despite this, freelancers consistently report enjoying the flexibility and autonomy their employment status affords, pointing to a complex interlinking of freedom and constraint at the core of their work experience. It is not yet clear whether emerging ways of organizing and financing journalistic labor, such as journalism cooperatives, news start-ups, and crowdfunding, offer sustainable alternatives to the waning employment opportunities in the big news organizations or to the model of the lone freelancer. So-called entrepreneurial journalism does not only tend to emphasize teamwork across professional boundaries; it also assigns a defining importance to digital technologies. The impact of the latter on journalistic labor overall varies; some research foregrounds the increased mobility and autonomy of multiskilled reporters, and other research mentions deskilling, labor rationalization, and the increased monitoring and measuring of journalistic performance.

Ready to Hire a Freelance Journalist: the Change in Estonian Newsrooms’ Willingness to Outsource Journalistic Content Production

“…Studies on changes in the labor market have often concluded that externalizing news production transfers organizational risks over to the freelancer (see Norbäck & Styhre, 2019), freelance and entrepreneurial journalists experience intense income insecurity (Gollmitzer, 2019), and changed working conditions lead to overall precarity that prohibits journalism's institutional functioning (Hayes & Silke, 2019). The issue of freelancers' work conditions, financial vulnerability, and various rights restrictions is not new in journalism studies (see Baines & Kennedy, 2010).…”

“…The definition of freelance journalists has diverged for many reasons (Briggs, 2012;Deuze, 2009;Deuze & Witschge, 2018). On the one hand, news organizations have increasingly outsourced content production due to decreasing revenues and changing labor markets (Edstrom & Ladendorf, 2012;Gollmitzer, 2019;Rosenkranz, 2019). On the other hand, to meet the demand for novel and divergent skills news organizations use non-journalistic actors (e.g., fact-checkers initiatives, data activists, start-up specialists, etc.)…”

Sårbarhet og avmakt? Arbeidsvilkår for norske mediefrilansere i en endringsutsatt bransje

“…I flere land er det en økende andel av journalister som jobber utenfor de tradisjonelle redaksjonene (Deuze & Witschge 2018;Gollmitzer 2020). I Norge er andelen mediefrilansere lavere enn i andre europeiske land.…”

“…Også tidligere arbeidsmiljøundersøkelser i mediene viser at andelen deltidsfrilansere er høy (Gollmitzer 2020;Sørensen mfl. 2005: 225).…”

Testing for the human capital value of daily newspaper journalists in the era of newsroom downsizing

“…In the pure market logic of newspaper owners and publishers, it makes good business sense. Yet, to rank-and-file newsworkers, it looks and feels a lot like their employer does not much value them as the fulcrum of the news enterprise (e.g., Edge, 2014; Gollmitzer, 2019; Roberts, 1997). Market logic, in this sense, sees newsworkers as exploitable and expendable in the pursuit of profit.…”