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Eye on local news
With layoffs across the journalism industry, newsroom jobs are fiercely competitive as a vast pool of candidates vie for a handful of open spots.
Last week in Corey Hutchins’ terrific newsletter on local media in Colorado, recent college grad Lucy Haggard wrote about her experience attempting to break into the industry. Her concerns aren’t just about her own career, she writes, but “about an entire generation of this industry, and especially those who have historically less privilege than people like me.”
This year’s racial justice protests have spurred a conversation in the journalism industry about how we hire. Most editors and reporters in the United States are white, and the most prestigious newsrooms in the country don’t veer far from their established hiring preferences.
Last year, an analysis from Voices found that at prominent outlets like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and NPR, 65% of summer interns attended highly selective universities. The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal tended to select interns who attended either an Ivy League school or Stanford, MIT, Duke or the University of Chicago.
This focus on status assumes students aren’t worth considering if they attended community colleges or any university not considered the most distinguished. These internship programs bolster a hiring pipeline that rewards privilege.
There’s another side to the concerns Haggard and other young journalists are raising. Many of the job listings I’ve seen during the pandemic have something in common: Implicit ageism.
Some of the language is coded, with editors seeking “energetic” reporters interested in landing their first reporting job. I’ve seen some that explicitly said they were looking for young applicants or recent college graduates.
One problem with this: If you realize years after graduating that you’re interested in journalism, how are you supposed to get your foot in the door?
Also this: There are far fewer listings seeking experienced journalists. Instead, what used to be multiple beats spread across different disciplines (text, photography, video and audio) has been collapsed into single positions dominated by young journalists who are willing to do this demanding work to get ahead.
I worry that young journalists, with all the tasks expected of them, will burn out. I worry that older journalists already have burned out or they’ll leave after becoming frustrated with having few opportunities for advancement.
How can we build newsrooms that survive the hardships of the pandemic while also making them better places to work? Places that put some weight behind the movement to hire journalists who better represent our communities and the many viewpoints they encompass?
New on Big If True
In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, court data shows that evictions are down 40% from the same point last year. That’s despite record-breaking unemployment and disruption of the oil and gas industry the state economy depends on.
Although some have cast the eviction figures as an indication that things are going better than expected, there are signs elsewhere that Oklahomans are struggling financially.
- The 211 information system in Oklahoma City has received about 7,500 calls and online requests for rental and mortgage assistance since mid-April. That’s an 82% increase from the same period last year.
- Homelessness prevention programs are seeing higher demand for rental assistance and other resources.
- An estimated 234,000 households in Oklahoma are unable to make rent and at risk of eviction, according to advisory firm Stout Risius Ross.
Evictions in Oklahoma are expected to go up late next month due to the end of a hold on evictions at properties tied to federal money.
And nonprofit leaders working to stem the potential tide of evictions told me that landlords sometimes won’t accept rental assistance. In one example, landlords rejected a program that could have given rental assistance to anyone who was eligible. The program wound up helping about 60 families.
Thanks for reading Hard Reset. If you value our coverage, please consider supporting Big If True with a tax-deductible donation so we can keep following this topic in Oklahoma.
Send me feedback, questions and tips: bryant@bigiftrue.org and 405-990-0988.
– Mollie Bryant
Founder and editor, Big If True
