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It probably came as little shock to anyone working in a U.S. TV newsroom when journalism professors Bob Papper and Keren Henderson released their most recent newsroom survey for RTDNA/The Newhouse School at Syracuse University. The headline was that burnout has hit scorching levels, and superficial newsroom attempts to cool it down don’t involve nearly enough water.
In this Talking TV conversation, Papper and Henderson share some of the reams of anecdotal feedback they picked up from news directors in compiling the survey that point to the severity of the problem. They share the mindset of young employees who prefer to bail on broadcast rather than hang onto untenable situations. And they highlight the exhaustion of news directors themselves, most of whom lack the power to improve the conditions wracking their newsrooms.
Most importantly, they discuss the likeliest accelerant for burnout — woefully insufficient salaries, especially at the starting level in small- and medium-size markets.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: TV news is suffering from a serious burnout problem. According to this year’s recently released RTDNA/Newhouse School of Syracuse University survey, almost 70% of all news directors see more evidence of burnout among their employees than in the past.
For anyone who works in a TV newsroom, there’s probably nothing surprising about that number at all. And given the survey’s other headline that local TV news employment is up 5.1% over last year, maybe it’s not quite at a crisis level yet. But that figure