____________________________Sections / Links______
_______________________________________________
Newspaper journalism is in a state of crisis (Project for excellence in Journalism, 2007; Picard, 2006; Alterman, 2006). Plummeting circulation, declining revenues, new technology, convergence, conglomerate ownership, and layoffs provide a bleak picture for anyone pursuing a career in newspapers. And, along with the quagmire of issues, the readers, the investors, the publishers and the editors want more -- more information, more revenue and more forums to present the news.
In 2006, newspaper stocks declined 14 percent, Sunday circulation continued its downward trend at 3.4 percent, and since 2000, about 3,000 full-time newsroom staff positions have been eliminated (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007). Meanwhile, Web readership continues to grow but fails to provide the revenue stream of print.
The burden falls to those working in the trenches that are asked to generate not just a daily product but a 24/7 information flow that accommodates a no-size-fits-all audience. Economic issues have compounded the old journalism stresses of deadlines, competition and work overload. With the newsroom cutbacks, the approximately 53,000 remaining full-time newspaper journalists (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007) are being asked to do more in a variety of ways. For instance, at Gannett -- the nation’s largest newspaper chain with 90 newspapers -- newsrooms are no longer newsrooms but “information centers” that merge the online and print operations. Information is presented in a variety of ways, including paper, Web and mobile devices (Ahrens, 2006).
For those in the newsroom, or information center, ignoring the economic impact on journalism is no longer practical (Alterman, 2006). Along with the traditional journalistic stresses of deadline and competition, news workers must now manage an evolving media and the intangibles that follow.
Journalists are highly committed to their profession and define such commitment as loyalty, pride in their work, getting facts correct, providing multiple sides of a story and playing the role of governmental watchdog (Becker, Sobowale and Cobbey, 1979; Pew Research Center, 1999). Even though more than 90 percent of journalists are proud to say they are journalists (Pew Research Center, 1999), their commitment has its limits. Surveys indicate that among recent journalism and mass communication graduates only about 20 percent expect to retire in their profession (Becker, Vlad, Tucker and Pelton, 2006). So at what point does dedication and commitment succumb to overwhelming burden?
At the turn of the 20th Century, “to burn oneself out” was English slang meaning “to work too hard and die early” (Partridge, 1950). One of the first modern-day references to burnout is Graham Greene’s 1961 best-selling novel A Burnt-Out Case about a world famous New York architect named Querry. Querry wrote to a physician:
I haven’t enough feeling left for human beings to do anything for them out of pity. . . A vocation is an act of love: it is not a professional career. When desire is dead one cannot continue to make love. I’ve come to the end of desire and to the end of a vocation (p. 57).
Although in 2005 the Center for Disease Control reported that among the top 10 most stressful jobs, journalists are listed seventh, only a few stress and burnout studies have been conducted involving journalists (CDC, 2005). In self-reported surveys, journalists have said they have suffered from some stress-related health problems (Gloede, 1983), described their jobs as “highly stressful” (Fitzgerald, 1995), and said that journalists are susceptible to burnout (Kalter, 1999). Some of the contributing factors to stress and burnout in those studies include meeting newspaper deadlines, pressure to produce good work, low pay, media competition, long hours, implementing new technology, and conflict between work and family (Gloede, 1983; Fitzgerald, 1995; Kalter, 1999; Reinardy, 2006b).
Studies have demonstrated that burnout can affect job performance (Wright & Bonett, 1997; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998; Keijsers, Schaufeli, Le Blanc, Swerts and Miranda, 1995; Parker & Kulik, 1995; Cropanzano, Rupp and Byrne, 2003), job satisfaction (Baruch-Feldman & Schwartz, 2002) and work and family relationships (Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian, 1996), which in turn can lead to diminished productivity and employee turnover (Netemeyer et al., 1996; Kossek & Ozeki, 1998; Simon, Kummerling and Hasselhorn, 2004; Netemeyer, Brashear-Alejandro and Boles, 2004; Huang, Hammer and Perrin, 2004; Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux and Brinley, 2005).
The three-component Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey was developed to measure the rate of burnout among professionals not working in human services (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996). Modifying the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which was established in 1981, the MBI-GS examines workers who do not have direct personal contact with service recipients. Unlike the MBI, the MBI-GS does not emphasis the relationships with clients but instead focuses on work performance in general. The MBI-GS includes Exhaustion, Cynicism and Professional Efficacy, and signs of burnout are evident if Exhaustion and Cynicism rate high and Professional Efficacy rates low (Maslach, Jackson and Leiter, 1996).
Using the MBI-GS, the purpose of this study is to determine the rate of burnout among newspaper employees, which includes reporters, copy editors, page designers, news editors, photographers and executive/managing editors. This study also examines the relationship between burnout and journalists’ intention to leave newspaper journalism. Previous studies have shown that burnout can lead to a reduction in work quality and quantity, employee turnover and conflict at home and at work. Identifying the rate of burnout among newsroom employees provides an opportunity to minimize or prevent the potential repercussions.