Doing more with less; "improvements" in the field of Communication

    "Despite facing revenue shortfalls, budget cuts and unprecedented operational challenges, local TV stations aired more news in 2020 than ever recorded by the RTDNA newsroom survey" (Papper, 2021), that kind of sums all of this up neatly with a bow. But, let's unpack a little bit. Local News stations rely on advertising revenue to operate. This advertising revenue is sold to local businesses in the form of "air time". When COVID hit, entire industries shut down. A lot of businesses couldn't afford to buy air time anymore. With a veritable captive audience, News Stations had to figure out how to capitalize on the sudden boom in potential viewers. They did.

      (Papper, 2021)

At the expense of furloughs, pay cuts and layoffs stations managed to rally to produce more aired news than the year before. Ratings went up across all audiences and many an executive patted themselves on the back for a job well done.


    So, what did this mean for those who were left? Smaller staffs, longer hours, "Mounting work pressures and dissatisfaction with the current situation. Following waves of layoffs and accelerated news cycles, journalists are expected to produce more news with less time and fewer resources...Accordingly, journalists and their employers are experiencing increasing dissatisfaction, which drives innovation in journalism" (Reich, 2018). In a study, it was found that in compensation for crushing deadlines, shrinking staff and dwindling pay, "Journalists rely significantly more than previously on Facebook and Twitter [ for information gathering purposes]" (Reich, 2018).

(LastWeekTonight, 2016)

If you'd like a few informative chuckles, as well as a dose of existential dread, feel free to watch John Oliver's take on the continual consolidation of the journalism industry.


References

LastWeekTonight. (2016, August 8). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/bq2_wSsDwkQ

Papper, B. (2021, May 12). Research: More stations produced more local news than ever during 2020. Retrieved from RTDNA: https://www.rtdna.org/article/research_more_stations_produced_more_local_news_than_ever_during_2020

Reich, Z. (2018, 11). The decline in orally negotiated news: Revisiting (again) the role of technology in reporting. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4116-4134. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2018-54870-009&site=eds-live&scope=site

 


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