Last Updated: May 26, 1999
Printer-friendly version
Staff development
Has our own malaise reduced our relevance?
Admitting there is a sense of woe in newspapers is
the first step; next we must document the symptoms and draw up a cure to
this Journalist Anxiety Syndrome
By: Phillip J. Milano
It’s about time we journalists mount a final assault on our 25-year-old
disease.
I’m as guilty as anyone of avoiding trying to cure it, thinking someone
else might or that it might just fade away.
But after seeing too many reporters and editors smitten with it in my
job as a trainer and sounding board to my newsroom and the industry alike,
I’m convinced this ailment isn’t clearing up on its own anytime soon.
I’m talking about a malaise I call Journalist Anxiety Syndrome, a lingering
inner gloom that’s been festering among growing numbers of people in our
business for too long.
It’s time to fess up to it as the key to our industry’s woes and stop
accusing everyone and everything else in sight.
Because if we don’t, we may as well surrender our keyboards and give
in to the continuing parade of well-researched but nugatory essays blaming
our imminent death on shrinking reader interest, concentration of ownership,
corporate downsizing and Letterman-monologues-viewed-as-news.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to create another illness for the
employee assistance program. But perhaps naming such a disorder, even for
discussion purposes only, can provide the wake-up call we need to look
back realistically at our journey as an industry, see what is happening
now and begin taking responsibility for it.
My concern over all this is prompted by two thoughts: First, is it possible
the chief culprit in our business’ progressive, quarter-century-long slide
in relevance and public respect is not any of the outside factors always
trotted out as the usual suspects, but instead a collectively internalized
malady?
And second, if we news-types were to accept this anxiety as a dynamic
at play in our craft, could that subtle shift in awareness (or massive
deviation, if you must) be the starting point on the path of re-emergence
we so desperately desire?
Consider it: Our own anxiety not as an effect of our industry’s slide,
but as the direct cause of it. A situation in which the anguish itself
has become the issue, a cancer now with a life of its own, a sort of victimization
pathology that must be reckoned with on its own terms, years after the
causes have become distant memories.
While you mull, see if you can recognize some of these classic JAS symptoms:
-
A vague but persistent sense you must "get out of journalism" to find gusto
in life, but with no motivation or plan for doing so.
-
A feeling beneath the surface that your job stress is so strong "it won’t
be my fault if I burn out or do something really drastic around here one
of these days."
-
A strong need to appear calm around your co-workers and supervisors, when
even you know trying to deny anxiety does nothing to quell it over the
long haul.
-
A feeling of being a target for "the next management coup."
-
A belief that your career should become a sidelight to "higher" callings
such as community involvement, volunteer work, local board membership and
church events.
-
An obsession that your peace of mind and the industry’s rebirth are just
around the corner — as long as one or two major problems with it get fixed.
-
A fear that talking about your professional concerns with the people at
work who may actually need to know about them will cause career suicide.
-
An overriding sense that your joy as a journalist is deeply tied to changing
and improving society, but that this can no longer happen through journalism.
There may even be a crisis stage to JAS, in which physical symptoms occur,
such as panic attacks in the face of new developments, uncontrolled crying
or anger between assignments or on receiving criticism, extreme and prolonged
neck and shoulder muscle tightening, obsession and sleeplessness over story
minutiae and justifying dangerous maneuvers in traffic because of the journalistic
task at hand.
Industry survey results such as this year’s "Newspaper Journalists of
the ’90s" report by ASNE only strengthen my beliefs. That study found,
among other things, that working conditions and stress now run close behind
money as the chief reasons journalists plan to quit the business before
retirement age. It also found the percentage of young people in the industry
has plummeted from 29 percent to 20 since 1989, and that a majority of
journalists now believe that in a decade, newspapers will be a less important
part of American life.
If you doubt our business is in crisis, ask yourself: Why, after all
the superlative projects, Pulitzer Prize-worthy investigative pieces and
daily exposes produced in the modern era of journalism and designed to
help society, do we still not attain to the level of trust and respect
we had even several decades ago?
Clue: Because it is impossible to expect people to believe in us as
an institution when we relentlessly and disproportionately show them they
cannot and should not believe in anything beyond their front door.
Why we feel this need to tear down without providing nearly enough hope
and solutions is a tricky thing to ponder, probably fare for another time
and space. But it might not be so crazy to suggest that the investigative
mystique after the Watergate coverage gave journalists an unrealistic expectation
of being the world’s caretakers, yet without much of a gameplan other than
apportioning blame. The public mistrust of all institutions that arose
from this may have helped breed a good measure of the anxiety within our
own business, a classic case of "what goes around comes around."
All of which is beside the point, because the long-ago causes of our
anguish are not the thing to face at this point. Let’s accept the anguish
itself as the current conundrum and our unique place in history, using
it as a bridge to a new era without being so preoccupied about what precisely
awaits us on the other side. It could be that the emotional and physical
symptoms popping up around us at an increasing rate are designed to make
us take action to opt out of this present stalemate.
But how do we do that? How do we, as the world’s professional storytellers,
eviscerate this opponent of our spirit and get back to our original, reasonable
and entirely accomplishable mission of keeping people informed and amused?
Maybe a start would be, as intimated earlier, to look at our industry
as an unhealthy organism and try to heal ourselves. We might:
-
Revisit the past. Explore anew who we were and what our goals were when
we entered the business, and determine whether those desires and personality
traits might make us vulnerable to JAS now.
-
Review our motivations. Resist the temptation to buy into the rationale
that working harder and "ceasing to complain" will provide any lasting
satisfaction. All happiness derived from accomplishment is fleeting.
-
Build a contemplation patch. Each newsroom could buy some plants and benches
and get their owner to set aside a tiny swatch of real estate. The newsroom
could build and plant the garden on a Saturday. Imagine the sense of community
that would be fostered by this act alone.
Or, ask for a small space inside your building to be set aside for sitting.
Decorate it comfortably to make it an island of peace within its frenzied
surroundings. The importance of "downtime" cannot be underestimated.
-
Organize a weekend outdoor retreat. Get your newsroom and other media professionals
from your area together. Invite the retired elder statesmen and women of
your trade. Sit in a circle. Talk about dreams, frustrations and desires,
and what things used to be like in the trade a long, long time ago. Get
your arms around your stress and move on from it.
-
Print one article of genuine praise for every article of genuine damnation.
Our credibility and that of society would be well-served by such a practice.
These are just a few ways in which we might start climbing out of the rut
we’ve slipped into. Only in coming to grips with what we have become and
dealing with it can we create a richer experience for ourselves and, in
turn, for our readers.
That is because, at our deepest level, we are something more than the
beliefs and ideas we and others have fashioned about ourselves. We are
something greater than all that has been said and written about us.
Let us reclaim the great truth of journalism as an idea put forth long
ago to help society help itself simply by being better informed. Nothing
more, nothing less.
Milano is staff development editor of The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville,
and director of the National Diversity Journalism Job Bank (http://www.
newsjobs.com).
The Newspaper Journalists of the ’90s report from the 1996-97 Human
Resources Committee is now available on ASNE’s Web site at
http://www.asne.org/kiosk/ reports/97reports/journalists90s/ coverpage.html
