Gunillocentrism – web diary of a freelance journalist

Yesterday, a friend of mine who is an excellent news photographer told me interesting things about the mechanisms of newsrooms. This summer, he has been working as a picture editor at the photo desk of one of Sweden’s largest news papers (I will have to ask him if it’s OK that I write which one) and so provided some inside-info.

He said that many of the young news reporters who are employed on that big and prestigious news paper short term only are very keen on getting many bylines – so that the editors-in-charge will take notice of their writing, and so perhaps employ them “for real”.

(Background: In Sweden, many reporters and other journalists are employed short term, up to 12 months, only – because media employers are afraid they will end up being stuck with too much staff if they have to employ people. Strange interpretation of strange labor laws. It’s not difficult to find very good and experienced news reporters, even in the age of 40 or more, who constantly get short-term contracts with all the best news rooms. They usually are dying to get employed! Either they do eventually, or they give up and leave news journalism all together, sometimes for PR and infotainment jobs – which typically pay much better, and offer fixed employment and decent work hours.)

So, because of the stress to produce numerous bylines, some of these news reporters don’t take their time to pursue good journalism. Instead of going out into the field and do the footwork required, i e meet and talk to people in their ambiances, they do all the research and interviews via telephone.
This means
a) they have time to produce lots of articles.
b) they don’t meet the people they write about; they don’t get confidence from their interviewees, which means people are probably less likely to want to appear with their pictures in the papers; they don’t get the ambiance; they don’t get to see what’s actually going on out there and if their news story angle seems to be relevant; they don’t get the 15 story ideas /including actual news/ that you usually get when you are out there interacting with people….and so on.

I wonder if this strategy is back-firing or not, i e if bosses/editors-in-charge really are just looking for quantity, or if they manage to spot quality as well?
Also, I wonder if the culture in the news room encourages the reporters to go out into the field, if they do – after all – wish to do so, and so “own the story” or not.

Well, freelancing certainly is a way of getting out into the field as much as one wants…

/Gunilla