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There’s one newsroom role I worry about above all others when there is an opening. Newscast producers? No. It’s harder than ever to find people to fill these roles, but we’re scrappy, creative and always figure it out.
Reporters? I’m worried, but they’re not at the top of the list, though they likely will be eventually.
Sports? Ha! That’s one job that still draws huge interest and robust applicant pools.
The real challenge is finding a good news director. In fact, that has me flat-out panicked.
I was a news director for almost 15 years. I walked into the job a vibrant young man with a plush head of hair. By the time I was done, I was bald and felt like a hobbled old man. This was in 2014, and looking back, that job was easy compared to today. So many things that were simple back then are infinitely harder now.
We ask a lot from the people we task with leading one of the more challenging missions and collections of people possible. The job is 24/7 now in a way that is much more demanding than when I was in the chair. News directors need to be craftier with how they spend money, act as counselor-in-chief to an ever-younger staff, master artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, serve as ethical gurus when the lines on many of our platforms are becoming blurrier and stay in touch and visible within the communities they serve.
Also, don’t forget about those ratings—not just TV ratings, but streaming