I’ve reported on layoffs in our industry for years, and I’ve never seen anything like the stories we’re hearing from journalists around the country right now. We know the pandemic led to closures and layoffs. I don’t think we yet know what other impacts it had on our industry or people’s careers.
But we’re starting to. And I suspect, like the Great Recession in 2008, it will impact a whole generation of journalists.
My colleagues Angela Fu, Amaris Castillo and I are collecting people’s experiences and reporting on their stories. Our latest profiles for the series, called “Some Personal News,” reflect something we’re hearing a lot. Some people really want to stay in journalism, like Elisa Berkowitz Gill, who managed to save her teams’ jobs at CNN but lost her own. Some people want to stay in journalism, but also want to earn a decent living and have a life outside the newsroom, like Sameer Rao, who left his arts reporting gig at the Baltimore Sun for a job writing for lawyers. And some want to stay in journalism, like Matthew Gerring, but can’t afford it.
We featured a journalist who got laid off and helped start her own newsroom, one who found isolation instead of her dream job and left the industry, and a veteran who was taking his time to figure out what’s next.
And there are, among the 47 entries to our Google form, at least 10 people who got tired of waiting to get laid off and left their jobs instead.
Castillo, Fu and I talk each week about what we’re hearing with this reporting, and I thought their reflections deserved a bigger audience. Here’s what they said it’s been like to cover these stories.
What have you learned?
Castillo: I've learned that it's important to know what your strengths are as a journalist. Even if your job is not in danger, we should make it a habit to dig within and pinpoint why we're good at what we do. What are some skills that can carry over to another field, should we find ourselves in that situation? Also, this isn't new, but reporting on this series has solidified for me that most journalists are natural-born hustlers. We pick ourselves up and never stop working. We have something to offer, even if it may no longer be in a newsroom.
Fu: I think reporting my first piece really showed me that the problems journalists and newsrooms face here in the U.S. aren't unique. Newsrooms across the world have been struggling, especially during the pandemic. It was striking to me just how similar Espina's and the Visayan Daily Star's stories are to the American layoff stories you've been reporting, Kristen. Talking to Gerring really highlighted some of the struggles early-career journalists, especially freelancers, face. A lot of gigs are temporary, and broader industry turmoil (i.e. newsrooms closing or changing ownership) can definitely affect independent journalists.
What do you think it says about our industry?
Fu: I think journalists still find immense value in the work they do. Espina is still in journalism, and though Gerring is not, he still cares about the work. But the industry is forcing people out, whether it's through layoffs or difficult working conditions. Journalists want to be journalists, but at the end of the day, they still have to pay rent, bills, etc., and sometimes the industry doesn't let them do that.
Castillo: Our industry can often come across as indifferent in how it treats its youngest journalists. These budding reporters — most of them fresh out of college and some with as little as one internship under their belt — are often left to navigate complicated relationships with new communities, in places that are completely foreign to them. It feels callous at times. There should be more support for them. It would be nice to hear of more managers being responsive to troubling issues brought forth to them by younger reporters. And that includes doubts about job performance.
In the case of the story I wrote about the former CNN executive producer, I'm reminded that at the end of the day, this industry is a business and it can feel merciless. That's why it's so heartening to see a journalist at the receiving end of a job elimination dust herself off and carve a new path for herself, all while relying on the skills she obtained through her many years in the field.
Want to share your story with us? You can add it to this Google form.
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