Search Results

Why the high risk of burnout among journalists? What kind of work conflicts play a role alongside personal aspects? How do journalists manage stress? How to prevent the problem? Discuss. Tuesday 4 May at 3 pm.

Researchers from the Artevelde University College did some qualitative research among journalists in Flanders suffering from burnout and will present their conclusions. Experts, including Minister of State and former journalist Leo Tindemans, suggest possible solutions.

The research was driven by estimates that 30 percent of professional journalists run an increased risk of burnout, 10 percent of which have burnout symptoms corresponding to those of burnout patients being treated in hospital. The results appear to be related to shifts in the journalistic profession.

The panel includes:

• Minister of State Leo Tindemans, who at the beginning of his career worked as a journalist for two years with Gazet van Antwerpen.
• Flip Voets (Council for Journalism), medical psychologist and health psychologist.
• Professor Elke Van Hoof (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Cancer Institute).
• Pol Deltour (VVJ.
• Ides Debruyne (Pascal Decroos Fund).

Nico Krols, editor in chief of Weliswaar, will moderate the discussions.

This study was conducted in cooperation with the Association of Flemish professional journalists (VVJ) and the Pascal Decroos Fund – with the scientific advice of medical psychologist and health psychologist professor Elke Van Hoof (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Cancer Institute) and professor of occupational psychology Hans De Witte (KU Leuven).

Venue
Tuesday 4 May at 3 pm
Room Maelbeek, Residence Palace, Wetstraat 155, Brussels

Please confirm your attendance with Eline Comer of Artevelde University College.
Tel: +32 473 86 44 85
Email: eline.comer@arteveldehs.be

Journalists are increasingly copying from each other. They rely too much on Google and other search engines and chiefly use other journalists’ production when searching the web, rather than primary sources such as the websites of political, scientific or cultural institutions.

These are the findings of a study from Leipzig University, which was commissioned by the North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Media Authority and presented on 23 June 2008 at a conference in Berlin (see the press release). (German language websites).

The study confirms findings by award-winning British journalist and author Nick Davies presented in his much-discussed book “Flat-Earth News”, which Davies is presenting on 3 July 2008 in Brussels (see elsewhere on this site).

See the Leipzig University study.

For more information:

Andreas Dietl

Mobile: +32 498 34 56 86

27/07/08. (as presented to the ‘Culture, media and democracy’ workshop of the European Cultural Parliament group on 25/07/08).

Most thinking people would agree that a free press is fundamental to the health of a functioning democracy. Dictatorships around the world are characterised by their restrictions on what domestic media can report, even if such controls have become more difficult to maintain with the growth of the internet.

So we tend to take it for granted that the western world in general enjoys a free press, unshackled by and unafraid of the powers that be. And yet, I ask, is our press really so free?

NUJ Brussels hosted on 3rd July 2008 a seminar called ‘Trust Me – I’m a journalist! Lead by award-winning author of ‘Flat-Earth News’ Nick Davies, the participants discussed his proposition that, in fact, a combination of powerful media barons, a burgeoning PR industry and lack of editorial power have brought an industry to the point where journalists on most media channels are either too overworked or too cynical to produce any kind of quality output .

Davies points to national stories that turn out to be pseudo-events manufactured by the PR industry, news stories that are shameless rehashes of corporate press releases, and a general failure to ask the kind of difficult questions that readers would like answered.

Why is editorial quality falling?

Why has the quality of editorial output fallen so fast? Davies suggests that changes in the industry mean journalists are required to churn out more and more news, in a shorter time, with no chance to check the information spoon-fed to them by newswires, PR firms or lobby groups. He cites astonishing figures from his own survey which showed that only 12% of articles in a sample of 2,000 showed evidence of fact-checking.

Davies’ claims are backed by over a year of media analysis from researchers at Cardiff Univerity. They are confirmed by another recent study, carried out by Leipzig University under commission from the North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Media Authority, which also shows the effects of time pressures on modern journalism.

The Leipzig University study indicated that journalists are increasingly copying from each other, and relying too much on Google and other journalists’ output rather than accessing primary sources such as the websites of political, scientific or cultural institutions. The study results were presented on 23 June 2008 at a conference in Berlin .

Both studies demonstrate the outward effects of a once-proud industry in decline. Talk to most journalists, staff or freelance, and they will tell a similar story. Disillusionment, dissatisfaction and weariness tend to set in after years trying to stand up for quality reporting, often, it seems, against a management which puts short-term profit above all issues of quality.

No wonder then that many journalists are quitting the profession to work in more mundane but more rewarding occupations in the PR industry. In my own conversations with other journalists, there is a clear view that even in the more quality-driven sectors of the press such as the BBC, long-term employees are leaving after decades of loyalty to their profession, out of disenchantment with their managers’ attitudes to their work.

An industry that is fragmenting

The NUJ (National Union of Journalists) itself is concerned about the increasing fragmentation of the industry. There are fewer and fewer big employers that say they have the resources to maintain strong editorial departments. Yet those same companies can often show profits in millions of euros, and are capable of awarding big increases to staff at director level while cutting the staff who work at the coal face.

Even established UK quality channels such as the BBC and The Guardian are cutting staff or combining print and online editorial functions. The BBC World Service for example (which is financed by the UK Foreign Office) is pushing staff to give up their full-time jobs in the UK and accept short-term contract work in countries such as India, Pakistan and Nepal.

The Guardian is investing hugely in its online operation, and as a result the Guardian Unlimited site is of high quality. But senior managers will readily admit that they don’t really know where the industry is going, and that the online investment could go into reverse at any time. In the meantime, editorial staff have lost the known regularity of a daily print deadline, and instead are being loaded with more and more short-term work to meet the needs of constant publication online.

This, then, is the state of the media industry in the western world at the start of the 21st century. An industry where standards take second place to profit, where senior managers don’t know where the industry is going, where younger (often non-editorial) managers are interested only in the next step up the career ladder, and where, as a consequence, staff journalists are routinely burning out from stress or overwork and leaving in their 30s and 40s.

What kind of reporting can we expect?

What kind of journalism can we expect from such an industry? Insightful analyses that inform people and politicians and help us to make good decisions? Or ‘happy slappy’ shallow pieces which make us feel good for a moment, but seldom guide our thinking? BBC Panorama style investigative reporting? Or the big-headlines and big-tits style of the Sun?

Only when the general public begin to understand and recognise the need for quality reporting can editors and reporters who believe in quality hope to climb back out of the abyss that is the media industry today.

There is some hope still – thanks to a small but strong market for quality media. The Guardian and the Independent in the UK have carved out niches for themselves as national purveyors, both in print and online, of accurate news and current affairs, while the FT is considered the paper of record for international and EU news. In other parts of Europe the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde and El Pais all have loyal followings.

In broadcasting the BBC has a strong fan base throughout the United Kingdom, as well as in other parts of the world. And enough support remains within European governments for the principles of public-service broadcasting to ensure that national broadcasters such as TF1, ARD, ZDF, VRT/RTBF and others remain in business.

Politicians recognising importance of independent media

What is encouraging is that the politicians themselves are starting to explicitly recognise the importance of strong and independent editorial. The European Parliament has voiced concern in a new report about the increasing concentration of ownership in the media business. The report, by Marianne Mikko (PES, ET), warns that the private media’s pursuit of profit could compromise its ability to act as a watchdog for democracy.

The report was adopted by the Culture and Education Committee on Tuesday 3rd June 2008. MEPs advocate ‘editorial charters’ to prevent owners, shareholders or governments from interfering with editorial content, and ombudsmen to protect media freedom. They also want the status of weblogs clarified, and suggest introducing fees for commercial use of user-generated content.

Certainly, for the media to fulfil its rightful role in defending democracy and challenging vested interests, certain safeguards are necessary at government level to ensure that the over-mighty of this world don’t turn it into a toothless bulldog. Enlightened governments recognise the need for an independent fourth estate, even if they sometimes suffer from the arrows aimed at them in response to less thought-out executive decisions.

But what is clear is that working journalists themselves need to keep a vigilant watch on the sometimes siren-like call of the PR world, and focus on what their readers, rather than the advertisers, want. In these times of cultural diversity to the point of societal confusion, the NUJ’s own Code of Conduct for journalists on what to report and how to report it can prove an invaluable guide.

My thanks, as always, to the EJC and J@YS for making this discussion possible.

© Philip Hunt 2008.

Brussels, 4th July 2008. Journalists and communications specialists packed the Residence Palace meeting room on 3 July 2008 for a lively and provocative debate led by UK journalist and author Nick Davies on the theme ‘Trust Me, I’m a journalist’. Davies’ book ‘Flat Earth News’ exposes the shifts in sources of real news and the resource drought which have led to the modern phenomenon of ‘churnalism’.

Davies explained that in publishing this study of modern media, he had broken an unwritten rule of the trade: a journalist does not rat on his own kind. Many were outraged by his exposé of the unpalatable fact that much of our modern-day ‘news’ is at best unreliable and at worst, simply untrue.

A press driven by accountants
This fallibility is not because media owners push their own line, nor is it because of corporate advertising, it is the effect of a massive commercialisation of newspaper ownership. Old family-run papers are now operated by multinationals where the profit motive drives all. Huge cuts in staff, a decline in independent freelance input and an over-reliance on newswires have drastically cut traditional channels of hard news.

Journalists are required to churn out more and more news, in a shorter time, with no chance to check the information spoon-fed to them by newswires, PR firms and lobby groups. Davies cited astonishing figures from his own survey which showed that only 12% of articles in a sample of 2,000 showed evidence of fact-checking. And everyone nowadays has a PR firm – even Al Quaeda, pointed out Davies, has a press office.

Lack of considered analysis
Davies was joined in the debate, which was chaired by NUJ Brussels member Leigh Phillips, by Professor Francois Heinderyckx of the department of Philosophy from the ULB. Heinderyckx gave insights from his own research on the role played by the ever-growing reliance on information technology.

For Heinderyckx, the over-reliance on technology of modern media has led to fragmentation and haste. News comes immediately but in little pieces – gone is a media which gathered facts, views and evidence to present its readers with a complete, considered analysis. The appearance of blogs by journalists and non-journalists has blurred the line between verified fact and speculation, between considered opinion and tittle-tattle.

Both speakers denounced the practice of so-called ‘balanced reporting’ – where one unverified statement of fact is weighed against another putting the opposite opinion, with no attempt to establish the true situation. Such journalism, said Davies, ‘is cheap and safe. It means never having to say you’re sorry because you have said nothing at all.’

Worse, such ‘balancing’ can serve to drown the truth. While official sources are seen as safe and reliable, those who disagree have their views weighed against a countering official opinion. As a result, voices such as that of Scott Ritter, who tried to point out that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, have gone unheard, or at least unheeded.

Many from the floor shared the speakers’ concerns, and the debate over how to address the issue continued during a subsequent drinks reception and book-signing in the Residence Palace bar.

See videos of the event:

• Nick Davies.
  
• Professor Heinderyckx.
• Questions & Answers 1.
• Questions & Answers 2.

Photos – © Conor Cahill, 2008.
Cartoon – © Jeremy Woolfe, 2008.

The event took place thanks to the support of our sponsors:

• Slovenian Tourist Board Benelux.
• Sterling Books, Brussels.
• Hotel Silken Berlaymont.

Background - see also these articles:

• ‘Structural problems in the media’ – The Guardian, 17 June 2008.
• Andrew Marr fears for the future of journalism.
  

Brussels, 28th February 2008. Presenting the latest survey of media freedom from the AEJ (Association of European Journalists), survey editor William Horsley said the findings should cause serious concern to editors and journalists across Europe. Pointing to abuses such as blatant media bias for pro-government candidates, interference in editorial policies, manipulation of the flow of news and comment, blocking of access to official information, threats and intimidation, not to mention increasing commercial pressures, he said that it is time that journalists got together to face these issues and deal with them.

Reporting in retreat

Horsley (an ex-BBC foreign correspondent) presented further research from 15 countries in this latest update to the AEJ survey, which showed media freedom as in retreat across much of Europe. In particular:

• Governments across Europe are showing a marked trend to use harsher methods, including heavy official “spin” and tighter controls on journalists’ access to information in order to block media criticism. Journalists are coming under more pressure to censor themselves or to toe a political line and not challenge authority. The open confrontation between government and the media in Slovenia is mirrored in various ways in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, among others.
• The media freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, which is binding on all 47 member countries of the Council of Europe, are being undermined by abuse and indifference from governments, and by journalists’ own neglect. Europe’s leaders and media have allowed the civil rights and media freedoms won for all Europeans at the end of the Cold War to be placed in doubt again. New forms of political and religious intolerance inside Europe and beyond its borders mean those battles must now be won all over again.
• “Dumbing down” has weakened public support for the media and also for media freedom, and 21st century economics have turned news into “churnalism”. Journalists need to demonstrate real commitment to objectivity and fairness – “the gold standard of good journalism” is to win back public trust. Media freedom is not an optional extra. Without it, governments cannot be held to account and there can be no rule of law.

Intimidation and repression

His points were made to a packed press room, in a meeting chaired by director of J@YS Giuseppe Zaffuto. Horsley picked five examples to illustrate his case, as contributed by a network of independent journalists across Europe:

1. Cases of straightforward violence (with no fewer than 13 assassinations in the last eight years in Russia) and intimidation against journalists or blatant manipulation of media in countries such as Russia and Armenia (both members of the Council of Europe).
2. Assault on the independence of media by central governments (e.g. in Slovenia, currently holding the presidency of the European Union and considered one of the best performing countries in this area when it was an applicant country).
3. Political abuse, particularly of public broadcasting (Croatia, Slovakia, Poland et al.).
4. New commercial pressures and over-concentration of ownership (e.g. France, Italy) affecting the independence and the quality of Europe’s mainstream media.
5. Security-related laws that are serving to block access to official information, and to threaten journalists with jail or fines through particularly severe libel and defamation laws.

Q&A
Some 30 journalists contributed to the Question & Answer session. One question discussed was the “conscience clauses” launched by the British and Irish press (e.g. the NUJ Code of Conduct). “What the media can do is to keep their own house in order. Are we really independent? They should ask themselves that,” Horsley stated.

API president Lorenzo Consoli added that it is important to improve conditions for transparency, and denounced the growing tendency among Brussels institutions to try and control the questions asked by the press.

While applauding the European institutions’ daily briefing facilities, Horsley asked why the EU is not treated by journalists in the same way as national EU governments. “The EU should be scrutinized like a government,” he said, “because it is a quasi-governmental institution.” He suggested that journalists start by asking themselves, “What topics appear to be off-limits?”

The difference [in Brussels] in attitude of journalists from the Anglo-Saxon press and those from the rest of Europe were also discussed. But the real test of media freedom, Horsley said, is in the quality of the questions.

We should also think how the role of the journalist has changed due to new technology, he said, noting the appearance of “churnalism”, news production as a factory-like process simply to fill space.

“Are journalists losing the battle for accurate reporting?” was a question from one journalist deploring the spread of “info-tainment” and decline of factual reporting. “We have to return to our core values,” said Horsley, “and focus on high quality, factual and accurate stories.”

He also advocated a return to real investigative journalism, as well as a greater role for the Council of Europe, which, he said, is the best defender of media freedom especially from the point of view of accountability.

Horsley summed up by saying that, “We need to restore the status and standing of editors and journalists”. He said that maintaining quality was important to avoiding what Nick Davies (author of “Flat Earth News”) called the “Ninja turtle” syndrome or the Three Monkeys case, i.e. take the gags away and try not to make monkeys of ourselves.

Download the survey

The full survey can be downloaded from the AEJ-UK website.

© Philip Hunt, Maria Laura Franciosi, 2008.

Back to Current News/Events

Keeping your skills up to date is vital if you are to stay in work, especially if you are a freelancer. The NUJ runs a range of highly regarded skills training courses at its headquarters in London and at other centres in the UK. Usually between a half-day and two days, they are normally scheduled at weekends, making it easier for you to escape a busy work schedule.

New FEU courses Autumn 2009 – Winter 2010
A number of new courses, specifically designed for freelancers in the creative and entertainment industries, have been launched for Autumn 2009 and Winter 2010. For more information go here.

Pitch & Deal / Getting Started as a Freelance
Two of the most popular courses for freelancers are Getting Started as a Freelance and Pitch & Deal, both of which are repeated at regular intervals throughout the year. Members travelling from the continent can take the Eurostar rail link to St Pancras International (which is a short walk from Headland House).

• Getting Started as a Freelance – cost for members is GBP 75 and for non-members GBP 105.

• Pitch & Deal – cost for members is GBP 85 and for non-members GBP 125.

For more information on these courses, go to the Training page at the NUJ Head Office website.

Book your place as soon as possible, first come first served. Contact training@nuj.org.uk or telephone Training Dept on +44 20 7843 3717.

—-

Pitch & Deal / Getting Started as a Freelance – some course notes for freelancers from abroad

Trainer Humphrey Evans has put together a few notes showing how some content has been specifically developed for freelancers outside the UK. The following is just an outline …

Availabilities
Make sure that you are trying to offer as wide a range of services as you can to as wide a range of outlets as possible. A South African freelance and NUJ member who had based herself in Ashford, Kent, realised she could benefit by marketing herself to the South African publications for whom she predominantly worked with the all-encompassing slogan: Covering Europe from a South African Perspective

Business cards
Some cultures pay significant attention to cards. If handed a card by a Japanese contact, for instance, you show respect by properly studying it while holding it in both hands. In countries such as Belgium, with split linguistic loyalties, you can smooth things along by having two sets of cards, one in Dutch and English, the other in French and English.

Deals and contracts
Different cultures can have very different attitudes towards negotiations and contracts. Some cultures haggle quite openly, others prefer to let an agreement emerge in some nebulous fashion. Brits, for instance, tend to be embarrassed by direct references to money, although freelances have to address and overcome this inhibition. Some cultures stick to the letter of a contract, others will casually breach any agreement if it suits them. One British picture agency, for instance, has ceased supplying photographs to Spanish publications because they have decided it is just not worth expending the effort that has to go into badgering them to actually make the payments specified.

Earnings
Keep looking out for information about who is paying what for what. An article in the American Journalism Review (www.ajr.org) by Deborah Baldwin, for instance, reveals that the San Francisco Chronicle pays its Paris correspondent $200 a story – how many of those would you have to do to stay alive? The NUJ’s London Freelance Branch website, www.londonfreelance.org, has a section, Rate for the Job, where people list anonymously amounts they have been paid, which gives you a good start at seeing what British outlets have actually been paying.

English
English gets affected by the other languages spoken by people who are using it as a common tongue for working purposes. A whole range of semi-official Euro-English expressions have coalesced around the European parliament and European Union institutions. Competences, for instance, means areas of responsibility. You need to keep this Euro-jargon out of copy filed for British publications. Watch, too, for slang such as the parking instead of car park.

Freelance status
In the USA, court cases have sprung up questioning whether people not directly employed as staff reporters on newspapers – freelances? citizen journalists? bloggers? – can call on the press freedom protections of the first amendment. The US National Writers Union, which represents freelance journalists, linked itself to the United Auto Workers because the newspaper staff unions refused to accept freelances as members. In France, the word freelance seems to be going into the language because their word, pigiste, implies someone relatively closely linked to particular publications who is paid for contributions published rather than being on a salary.

Information
Start with the London Freelance Branch website at www.londonfreelance.org, which has an enormous amount of archived information about freelancing, including the general advice set out in the several dozen pages of the Freelance Fees Guide. Paris and Brussels branches have websites at www.nujcec.org/paris and www.nujcec.org/brussels. The US National Writers Union (www.nwu.org) has published a Guide to Freelance Rates & Standard Practice. Other journalist unions may well publish guidance about freelancing in their countries.

Invoices
Take these seriously – they are effectively bills telling your clients what you expect to be paid and when. The BBC, for instance, provides a two-page guide to freelances on how they should go about invoicing for work done for the BBC: it starts by saying you must make the invoice out to the BBC or the programme concerned, not to the individual who commissioned you. Some cultures are even more exacting: misspell a company or publication name in an invoice for work done for an Indian-based organisation and it may be months before you will be able to sort out the resulting difficulties and lay your hands on the payment.

Journalistic styles
In Japan, according to Siân Rees writing in Press Gazette, people do not want to stand out, so it is difficult for journalists to elicit anything but the most anodyne of statements from interviewees. On top of that, much of the media is locked into what she describes as the cosy kisha press club system, an extreme version of the UK Lobby which facilitates contacts between journalists and politicians, although weekly and monthly magazines do cover scandals and the dirty deeds of politicians.

Outlets
You need to research publications and other outlets that may take your work. Benn’s Media Directory, Willings Press Guide and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory provide multi-volume listings of publications in the UK, Europe and the world at large. BRAD, British Rate and Data, lists UK publications with their advertising rates – which probably tells you something about the freelance fees they are prepared to pay. All these have websites. You are unlikely to be able to afford subscriptions, whether in print or electronically, as these run into hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds a year, but you may be able to find them in large reference libraries.

Payment
You will need to explore how you are going to receive payment from other countries and in other currencies. Some organisations will just post you a cheque made out in their currency. Talk to your bank before paying it in to make sure the charges for handling it are bearable. It may be worth putting cheques through in batches, for instance, if your bank charges a fixed fee for transactions. Alternatively, you might think of opening a bank account in a country from which you expect to get regular payments. Multi-national credit cards and electronic payment systems may also be worth looking at.

Politenesses
Different cultures have different codes of interaction. French speakers in France and Belgium, for instance, will probably respond best if you approach and address them in a more formal manner than you might be accustomed to in Britain. Dutch speakers in Belgium and the Netherlands may well be happy with something much more easy-going.

Press cards
Your National Union of Journalists press card will get you a long way. (Non-NUJ members may be able to access a British press card through other gatekeepers.) The International Federation of Journalists can supply an international press card accessed via the NUJ. National press cards may also be available – France, for instance, has a commission charged with issuing journalistic identity cards although these appear to be restricted to people working on officially registered publications and in the case of foreigners the decision may go up to ministerial level.

Regulation
Le Guide des Journalistes, published by one of the French journalist trade unions, the USJF-CFDT, devotes about a third of its more than 250 pages to printing laws relating to employment as a journalist. Some countries require journalists to be registered or licensed. This may well apply even when you are only planning to visit a country for a short time: if you intend to work as a journalist while on a trip to the USA, for instance, you will need to apply for an “I�? visa, rather than relying on an ordinary tourist visa, or you risk being turned back at immigration.

Self-employment
‘Atypical workers’? is the bureaucratic Euro jargon for the categories that include self-employed people. Atypical means that self-employed people in some countries do not fit easily into tax and social security categories designed for typical workers, those taken to have steady, life-long staff jobs

Tax and Social Security
Whatever you do, make sure you are engaging with the tax and social security systems of the country where you are living and working. Paris Branch of the NUJ has advice handouts on the situation in France which can be downloaded from its website (www.nujcec.org/paris) once you have made contact with them and been given the password. Be warned: only once you have begun the minuet of registration will you realise the truly frightening signification of the phrase “pas de problème�?.

Victor Noir
Do check out local journalistic histories. In Paris, for instance, think of visiting the tomb of Victor Noir in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. He, as a young mid-19th century journalist, ended up shot in a misunderstanding over someone else’s duel. His memorial is a romantic dream, his bronze body sprawled out across the ground, and it has become something even more romantic, a fertility charm. Women wanting babies come to make wishes.