This post was originally published on this site
[Author’s note: This is the second of two reports. You can read the first one here.]
Talk about hitting a nerve! Last week’s report on the “Local Newsroom Recruitment Crisis” is already on track to become the Knight-Cronkite News Lab’s most-read article ever. The rupturing pipeline for young TV journalists is a major pain point for news directors, and the worsening shortage of new recruits is touching off a snowball or domino effect — pick your metaphor — of stress, burnout and resignations among those who already work in the newsroom.
After last week’s story, I got a note from a reporter in a top 20 market that said in part, “I’ve watched many friends and amazing colleagues leave the business for the reasons you outlined in the article. We’ve lost so many good people. It’s not sustainable. Burnout is real.”
Melissa Luck, news director at Morgan Murphy Media’s KXLY-TV in Spokane, posted this reaction on LinkedIn: “When I talk to other news managers, the two things that keep us up at night are recruitment and retention. We have to take a serious look at ourselves in this industry right now if we want to keep building and innovating.”
They’re both right. This is a fundamental threat first to the quality and ultimately to the viability of local TV news.
So — what can we do about it?
There’s no single or simple answer, but here are six ideas for station leaders to consider.
This is the most obvious
