On the one hand it makes sense from a business perspective, the easiest thing to find and get coverage of that attracts eyeballs is stuff that makes people afraid. If you want extra cash it’s a good thing, but it can sure get grating, especially when management keeps trying to convince you that it should just be a given because “The news never sleeps” so shut up about it.Īnother big personal issue that you readers may not be concerned as much about it always bugged me how much the station focused on crime, drug panic, and tragic death stuff. I worked on all the shifts for all the news teams and there were rarely shifts that didn’t call for overtime except on Sunday night side. Overtime on a shift is the rule rather than the exception. But they sure make it seem like it’s a problem YOU’RE responsible for if you don’t get on scene before the other stations. Nobody ever TELLS you to speed to get to the breaking news, and in fact they tell you not to. And that sort of mentality was definitely cultivated in the field staff. It’s hard to stick to your concerns over the safety of a field situation when not going into the situation would mean abandoning the reporter who’s DESPERATE to earn brownie points with the bosses.
Rarely does anyone in management TELL you to go put yourself in precarious situations for shots, but the pressure from the news room in the moment and the environment of the workplace in general pushed not only you individually, but the entire field staff to do it “of their own volition” hoping to prove themselves valuable. (especially after the transfer of ownership when new management always tries to put as good a first few quarters on the books as possible.)īiggest problem for me was management double talk regarding field crews. Sometimes we were understaffed or under equipped, but that always felt like it stemmed from the company using the photog department as an easy area to cut costs/milk a little extra labor value out of. “Overall the photography team itself was pretty good. This person describes the overall newsroom environment as:
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