At what point do you simply get off the treadmill?

An acquaintance who works at a local news station told me the other day that staffing changes are impairing the station's ability to develop quality news. Upon re-read, that last line feels like a "duh." But let me explain.

Specifically, he said that the station has three categories of staff: a) FTEs, ie: people with real full-time jobs; b) steady contractors, ie: people who work regularly and full-time for the station, but who don't get benefits and who can be terminated on a moment's notice; and c) traditional freelancers, ie: people who are pulled in for specific jobs but otherwise aren't part of the "team."

The problem with the setup, he said, is that, while the station has all the bodies it needs to do the work, it isn't necessarily getting the best work out of them. The problem is with that middle category of people. The station thinks it's a good deal: It has the bodies it needs, but if it faces an economic downturn, it can let them go immediately.

What they don't realize--or perhaps do and simply don't care about--is that a person who can be let go immediately doesn't give you their best work. Not because they're holding back on you out of resentment or the like. But simply because, in order to hold on to their job, they become a "Yes Man." Good journalism results when journalists fight for the stories they believe in. When they stand up to editors and say, "No, this is where the real story is." Good journalism does not result from journalists who never challenge a editor's take, for fearing of getting laid off.

It's stories like these that make me wonder whether traditional journalism even has a future. Instead of taking truly bold moves, making leaps to completely new ways of doing things, so many organizations seem to be simply trying to cut and reconfigure their way to profitability within the old model of doing things. And yet, you'd think that when you get to the point where reconfiguring just makes the quality go down even further, you'd conclude there is no future here.

It reminds me of that old line from the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland: "Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

At that point, I wonder, why don't folks just get off the treadmill and move to a new game altogether?

The book of lists: Things we know

There are some great "things I know" lists out there where people in the news biz enumerate the hard truths they believe to be true about the state of journalism and this transition we're in the middle of. Here are three I highly recommend:

William Lobdell's "42 Things I Know"

Veteran LA Times journalist Lobdell volunteered to be part of the recent round of layoffs. He left his job Aug 1 after 18 years in the biz. In an email exchange with an OC Weekly reporter, Lobdell made the sobbering admission that he had concluded that "the risk of staying at the paper had become greater than the risk of leaving."

His list of "42 Things" offers his assessment of the news industry, including the fact that the newspaper business model is broken (#3), no one knows how to fix it (#4), and that's probably because it can't be fixed (#5).

He also says:

• A news web operation can support far fewer journalists and layers of editors. It requires a different mindset. (#17)


• Sam Zell isn’t the ultimate villain.... In the long run, he’s just an accelerator for a downfall that is happening naturally. (#20)


• We operated as though we had a monopoly on truth and great journalism for far too long. We didn't listen to our critics and sometimes our readers. That cost us. (#24)

Ryan Sholin, "Ten Obvious Things You Need to Get Through Your Head," and "Ten Obvious Things, One Year Later"

Sholin is a San Jose State University grad student in mass communications. He's also a former Web developer and online editor. Plus, he's located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Maybe those things combined have contributed to his point of view.

"Ten Obvious Things...," written in June 2007, was one of his most popular blog posts ever. He updated it a year later. Among his thoughts:

• Your major metro newspaper could probably use some staff cuts. If you’re not writing about local news, your paper’s readers are probably getting what you do from somewhere else. (#3)


• Bloggers aren’t an uneducated lynch mob unconcerned by facts. They’re your readers and your neighbors and if you play your cards right, your sources and your community moderators. (#7)


• You ignore new delivery systems at your own peril. RSS, SMS, iPhone, e-paper, Blackberry, widgets, podcasts, vlogs, Facebook, Twitter — these aren’t the competition, these are your new carriers. (#8)


• THE GLASS IS HALF FULL. There is excellent work being done in the new world of online journalism and it’s being done at newspapers.... You don’t need millions of dollars or HD cameras or years of training to make it happen; all you need is the right frame of mind. (#10)

Mindy McAdams: "The Survival of Journalism: 10 Simple Facts"

McAdams teaches university courses in online journalism and the use of technology for communication. She says:

• Journalism CAN be done, and done well, without newspapers. (#2)


• Newspapers were a nice business.... It worked for a long time, but now, like trans-Atlantic leisure travel in big passenger ships, it will never work again. (#5)


• The business model to sustain journalism in the 21st century has not been seen yet. (#9)

Photo courtesy of Claudecf. Creative Commons license.