The above quote is from the new Peacock comedy series, “The Paper,” portraying efforts to return local news coverage to a struggling small-city newspaper.
I’m only a few episodes into the first season but it’s already hitting close to home. I’ve never worked in the newspaper business but the scenario is a close parallel to TV news.
In the episode, a reporter is headed to a water main break when he is injured and needs to go to the hospital. The desperate editor is wondering if there’s some way the crew can still cover the story.
Yes, indeed, I have been in a newsroom where a reporter was injured while headed to a story. And yes, I have been in multiple newsrooms where desperate editors asked if crews could “swing by” events that were obviously too far away.
It’s an all-too-real scenario for newsrooms, especially small ones. It’s not a new revelation that staff sizes have been shrinking while newscasts have been added and new platforms have been launched.
Despite much of the rhetoric, new technology does not create enough efficiencies to allow cuts and growth at the same time. Someone still needs to do the most basic and obvious function of a news organization: reporting.
Unfortunately, when it comes right down to it, reporting is the first thing that gets cut first when staffing is slim. TV newsrooms need a minimum number of anchors to get newscasts on the air, while the number of people reporting can be reduced to zero in a pinch.
At most stations, newsroom positions have been combined and then combined again. Graphics operators and video editors were eliminated long ago in most shops, with newscast producers taking on the extra duties — reducing the amount of time they have to find additional news stories and improve scripts in the rundown.
Reporters became multi-media journalists expected to shoot and edit their own video. Anchors were asked to produce and run their own teleprompter. All while posting to multiple social medial platforms during the commercial breaks.
Then, the combined positions were combined again, with former weekend anchor-weekday reporter positions becoming weekend anchor-producer/weekday multi-media journalist positions. Then they were asked to anchor, produce, report, shoot, and edit on the same day.
How are young journalists fresh out of college expected to build their skill sets when they are juggling a half-dozen jobs at once?
In another scene from that same episode of “The Paper,” the editor calls a meeting to come up with story ideas. The staff doesn’t know where to find news and immediately looks at their phones. All of the cuts have removed basic reporting skills from the institution.
One small TV newsroom where I worked had five full-time reporters when I began a few decades ago. That was eventually whittled down to two full-time reporters who then became multi-media journalists as many photojournalist positions were eliminated.
But, we had more newscasts and more platforms, and we were expected to cover more events live online.
One Minnesota news anchor recently revealed on social media that she and a director were the only people in the entire building to put one weeknight newscast on the air. The anchor produced and edited two newscasts and also found time between shows to get video of high school football games.
Eliminate any more positions and there is no newscast at all.
But really, what is the value in a local newscast if there is no local news on it? It might as well not be on the air anyway.