Where Do the Journalists Go Now?
As media titans self-combust, what does that mean for reporters, their sources and the news we desperately need?
I was laid off from my first full-time journalism job. And also, my last.
After the first, I thought it would just be a blip.
I was an editorial assistant at Newsweek & The Daily Beast in Washington, D.C., back when the two publications were one in 2012. For my first real journalism job, it was a dream. I worked next to historic figures like Eleanor Clift— who in 1970 helped pave the way for female reporters by challenging archaic norms that kept women as “Girl Friday” secretaries, instead of bylined reporters. I got suggestions for sources from Daniel Klaidman and edits from Richard Just and sat in awe of the writings of Pulitzer Prize winning fashion writer Robin Givhan.
But already, Newsweek was a shell of its former self. While my Daily Beast colleagues in New York, like Olivia Nuzzi and Ben Collins, got free Friday bagels in an office designed by Frank Gehry, the D.C. office had already been cut in half, quite literally.
We no longer occupied the front side of the building that overlooked the White House and the National Mall. The days when the magazine would cater a Fourth of July BBQ for employees watching the fireworks were long gone. So too was the annual Newsweek retreat, where I was told reporters were once flown with their families via helicopter to Governors Island for the weekend.
I should have seen that first layoff coming, because in fact, I had already weathered one. One year in, Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown was gone. My boss, D.C. bureau chief Howard Kurtz had been ousted in a scandal (talk about a trial by fire for a first job), and half the D.C. staff had been let go. It came down to me to help pack up the offices when we downsized. I spent the weekend sifting through the basement library that was filled with folders of typed notes we had dating back to before Watergate. I desperately tried to find a university to take them so they wouldn’t be thrown away. I took home old typewriters for decor and the staff divvied up old Newsweek posters— far too many to fit in our new one-room space equipped with Ikea desks and a simple The Daily Beast logo that I had blown up on a poster at Kinko’s.
Less than a year later, I was gone too.
But I was still hopeful. It was the era of second comings in journalism. Places like BuzzFeed were taking off. Mic was a place that everyone wanted to work. The Huffington Post had taken over Newsweek’s old office space and blown it out to include a nap room. The journalism world was full of opportunity, and new technology and expansion.
The last job I got laid-off was almost exactly a year ago today— at HuffPost. And it felt very different.
When I first announced I was taking on the role of National Investigative Reporter, HuffPost’s former Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim tweeted at me, “Very cool. Didn’t we try to make this happen like 10 years ago?”
They had in fact, after Newsweek. But I had turned down the offer to report about sleep and wellness for Arianna Huffington to instead write about politics at Scripps News under the brilliant Ellen Weiss. That was one of the best periods of my career. It was full of boundless enthusiasm, endless opportunities. I was given the chance to try new styles of storytelling and just, play around. I learned how to host a podcast, how to do stand-up TV live. I chased around politicians on the 2016 campaign trail at 25-years-old, and I was surrounded by some of the most encouraging and brilliant people that I’ve ever worked with.
I thought HuffPost could be another exciting new beginning. It lasted not even a full day.
Now, exactly a year later, the journalism industry is looking even bleaker.
The Washington Post laid off more than 30% of its staff this week, and seems to have no vision for a move forward. The future of journalism is abysmal. Between 2008 and 2020 newsrooms shed 30,000 jobs (26%). It’s estimated that between 2024 and 2034, newspaper publishers will lose another 18% of staff.
But it’s not simply the loss of job opportunities that hurts. It’s the loss of journalism.
As the joke account Reductress wrote: Washington Post Lays Off Half of Slogan— “Democracy Dies.”
Now with more than 300 reporters on the job market, adding to hundreds already looking for replacement jobs, the question is: Where do the journalists go? No one seems to have the answer.
While places like The New York Times are one of the few increasing their revenue streams, we can’t all go there. And lack of competition is ultimately awful for good reporting.
As Post reporter Jeff Stein wrote: “We can’t have just one major national newspaper in America.”
The alternative, is this. Substack. Some reporters have done an excellent job hacking it. But even they acknowledge it’s not made for everyone. As my dear friend Taylor Lorenz posted this week:
“These journalists are told to just build their own audience. And, yes that’s a life raft, yes that’s how i’ve had my entire career, but some of the best journalists I know are not inherently social media people… some of the best journalists in the world are deeply detail oriented, they are really good at frankly challenging power, which does not really get an audience online, let me tell you. and its certainly not easy to monetize online.”
Journalists are not influencers— Thank God! Some of the best are obsessed with the most boring things— numbers, spreadsheets, accountability! It’s not sexy, but damn is it democratic.
Then there are journalists who are being told to start their own media non-profits. My advice: If you want to run your own business, go for it. If your goal is to be a reporter, the last thing you want to do is learn the rude realities of fundraising and management. (Your fictional future employees will thank you for it.)
I’m in several slack groups where journalists share their “Plan B” options. A former colleague was mulling becoming an electrician. I read about an SF Chronicle reporter who left to become a veterinarian.
But then, what happens to the facts? Who will tell the stories? Who will spend the hours and hours and hours investigating? Fewer reporters means fewer places for whistleblowers to leak information. A Washington Post reporter friend of mine told me over tearful coffee on the day of her newsroom’s cuts that several sources had texted her checking in to see if she was OK. She felt embarrassed. I told her that’s not true, because their relationship is symbiotic. Without her, who would they turn to otherwise?
I’m highly aware of what happens when news deserts expand and media declines— because I’ve written about it for the last three years. People don’t stop searching for information, they just find it elsewhere. And opportunistic industries and campaigns find ways to fill in the gaps where real media has died off— sometimes disguised to look just like papers. I highlight one of those networks in an investigation I published this week in The Columbia Journalism Review.
I’ve been able to cobble together a somewhat stable career through my lay-off experiences. I love that I get to write my climate newsletter The Understory for Atmos, which has allowed me to merge my years of policy and climate experience, as well as personality, to tap into a type of storytelling I have never done before.
But this is not an easy path. Some days it feels like I’m living an optical illusion — a career held together by struggle and grit, therapy and wine, a passion for the truth and a messy love for this bittersweet industry.
What is it that they say, again? Journalism is the thing you love that doesn’t love you back.
"a career held together by struggle and grit, therapy and wine..." YUP.
The contuing erosion of our press has been bad news for democracy. (By the way, you should change "damn is it democratic" to small-d, lest it look like shilling for one of our parties, which would be more authoritarian - which imo both of them act like.)