The Stability Factor: How Sustainable Are Careers for Young News Professionals?

Survey shows low pay and better opportunities are among the major concerns young news professionals face in the industry.

The News Professional Sustainability Report aims to shed light on the realities faced by young journalists in India's digital media landscape. This report explores the financial, mental, and physical challenges that these young news professionals encounter, examining how these factors impact their job satisfaction and overall career sustainability. By focusing on the lived experiences of young news professionals, this report provides crucial insights that can help both individuals and organisations navigate the volatile media industry.

Few industries have been hit as hard in recent years as the digital media industry. With tech giants like Google and Meta eating up the bulk of digital ad revenues, it’s left digital media platforms scrambling for scraps. In this process, digital journalism has been impacted with a wave of layoffs, and bankruptcies and acquisitions by legacy companies.

Amidst this extreme volatility, there is a lack of focus on the qualitative experiences of professionals within newsrooms, which can significantly influence the overall growth of the news media industry. The focus tends to be on macro statistics, reducing news professionals to mere numbers and overlooking crucial insights that could enhance conditions for both professionals and publishers.

In India, both the Digital News Report and the Changing Newsroom report by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism focuses on users and industry leaders. Newslaundry’s reports on Gender and Caste take a look at representation across the news media space more than quantifying the experiences across roles and departments. Additionally, most of these reports primarily focus on journalists, discounting other news professionals from departments like product, design, production etc. that contribute to the journalistic endeavours of the organisation.

The ‘News Professional Sustainability Report’ explores how young news professionals navigate this volatile professional space amidst economic downturns, state crackdowns on press freedom and workplace challenges. It explores how gendered experiences, workplace grievance redressal mechanisms and overall impacts on health can affect professional pursuits with the digital news media space. The report surveyed 11 news professionals comprising seven cisgender women and four cisgender men, aged 20-29.

Forced to Settle for Less

It is well established that gender diversity in newsrooms is a lingering issue that publishers must address to improve their reporting standards and create an equitable workspace. While digital newsrooms in India are better than their mainstream counterparts in terms of representing women in newsrooms, it still falls short at 38%. Non cisgender news professionals account for less than 1% of the total journalist workforce.

Some of the key insights show how pay parity remains an issue for women, both within newsrooms (Figure 1) and their own professional pursuits (Figure2).

Other than pay parity, one can observe that both men and women are equally searching for new opportunities. Additionally, healthy work-life balance remains a pain point. As digital media are resource strapped, maintaining work-life balance is often given a lower priority in the name of growth. This could leave space for exploitation of young news professionals where they are overworked and underpaid. And with no bargaining power, they are often at the losing end of the conversation.

It is interesting to note that pay parity between men and women is relatively close when considering average earnings. Women have slightly more representation in higher salary brackets, indicating better opportunities for women. However, this could also simply be because of the limited number of participants and the experience level of the lone woman who occupies that top salary bracket. The number could change in any way with a larger pool, indicating a similar trend in pay disparity across other industries.

In Figure 2, one can observe how both men and women are met with different challenges inside the newsroom with some overlap in most of them. Women increasingly face low pay and non-constructive feedback more than men. Men, on the other hand, deal with a higher workload and favouritism as compared to women.

One would assume that these newsroom issues are flagged and escalated across the organisation. However, data suggests otherwise. Most prefer to not bring forth these complaints to management for various reasons.

Most of the respondents felt isolated and unfamiliar in the grievance redressal process. This could be chalked up to a lack of structure within digital news organisations where young professionals are made to prioritise experience and work ethic. This largely mirrors the start-up culture where employees are expected to prioritise growth over everything else. 

Barriers to Workplace Sustainability

The Covid-19 pandemic forever changed how employees work and productivity is measured. Work from home emerged as one of the biggest challenges that both professionals and organisations faced. There’s plenty of research that offers varying views on how both sides view working models.

The News Professional Sustainability Report showed that a vast majority preferred a hybrid working model where employees have the freedom to juggle between working from the office and their homes. The ‘freedom’ it offers emerged as the biggest reason that aided to their professional and personal growth. However, their preference differs from their current situation.

Low compensation has emerged as the biggest gripe that news professionals have with their workplace. The consequent financial stress can potentially create problems in managing expenses, debt and savings. This persistent financial stress adds to a deteriorating mental health state that can contribute to anxiety, depression and burnout as news professionals juggle between professional and personal commitments. This can further exacerbate into negatively impacting physical health with unhealthy eating habits and lack of sleep. News professionals caught up in this vicious cycle where each stressor contributes to the other will not only often end up with a poor quality of life but also affect their productivity and overall job satisfaction, creating a detrimental impact on both their personal and professional lives.

A Grim Look Into the Future

Insights from the Digital News Workplace Sustainability Report paint a challenging picture of the future for young news professionals in this space. Low pay and the subsequent financial stress lead to a cascade of negative effects on their mental and physical health, further compromising their professional satisfaction and growth.

Without significant changes in how digital news organisations address these issues, many young news professions might find themselves disillusioned and burnt out. This lack of hope and satisfaction can drive talented individuals away from the profession, exacerbating the challenges faced by an already struggling industry. Over a third of the respondents are either unsure or have decided to shift away from the digital news media industry altogether. The report emphasises the pressing need for publishers and industry leaders to create a more supportive and sustainable working environment. At a time when press freedom is under attack in India, it’s crucial to foster a healthy and sustainable environment so that the next generation of journalists can thrive and continue to contribute to the essential democratic function of journalism in a society.