For many people, being a journalist means paying attention to everything around them all the time, always on the lookout for a story, an idea, an interview, a special case. Gustavo Ávila, journalism student at Cásper Líbero, and intern at the Brazilian news portal UOL, has been through this before. On his way from work, he came across a stabbing in front of the subway station, and then, did what any journalist would do: he took several photos and videos of the scene, gathered information from the people around the area and sent everything to the newspaper. Even so, he vents saying that “sometimes, we just want to get home and rest”. But why does taking a break seem impossible when it comes to journalism?
Society’s consumption and vision of 24 hours journalism.
Since the beginning, the practice of journalism has been romanticized and perceived as something that follows a person’s life at every turn. In a certain point of view, that’s exactly what makes being a journalist so rewarding. When you have the chance to come across an interesting story and work on it for so long that it ends up consuming you (in a positive way) — this is good investigative journalism, and it takes time and a lot of patience. But the passage of time and the changing work habits in society have a major impact on the final product.
Hard news journalism, for example, can be hard to manage and mentally consuming. Gustavo works in this field, and he feels constantly pressured to be productive all the time. His work depends significantly on what’s happening in Brazil — if there’s a lot going on, his workload increases, and vice versa. “This leads to a kind of self-criticism, so when there isn’t much to talk about regarding politics and economy on that day, you have to look for news in other sources and that doesn’t necessarily mean quality. Sometimes those texts are there just to fill space and to try to hold onto an audience that we are expected to attract”, he says.
In an increasingly fast-paced society, with fleeting events and a relevance that has an expiration date, the journalist’s work gets even faster and more extensive. To fill the demands of the audience, like Ávila mentioned, means talking about various things quickly and briefly. According to Dr. Heavens Obasi, in his paper about the evolution of news consumption, “audiences now demand real-time updates and often seek out breaking news coverage […] this pressure on news organizations to provide timely information can lead to challenges in maintaining journalistic standards”. Expectations are growing absolutely higher and less realistic, given the rapid advancement of technology and journalist’s inability to adapt immediately.
Demanding that journalists, as ordinary human beings, adapt to the speed of machines is degrading, not only for those who write but also for the ones who consume the content. It’s impossible to live up to that high expectation. And when journalism is compromised, everyone is affected: the public remains uninformed while journalists have to deal with excessive demands and unexplained substitutions of their work for an artificial intelligence in newsrooms. When we dehumanize journalism and start to work with AI, the precariousness of the environment is reflected in the impersonal nature of texts and stories, which become nothing more than a source of empty — and, in some cases, false — information.
The shift in journalism consumption is also one of the main challenges — and perhaps the reason — for the precarious state of the profession. Due to the daily use of social media by the public, it has become necessary to adopt a more streamlined and dynamic form of journalism. Dr. Obasi highlights: “news organizations must adapt to technological advancements and changing audience preferences to remain relevant”. This also means journalists themselves must adapt more, learning new formats and specializing in each one, which takes up even more of their free time to produce work.
Why do we feel the need to be productive all the time?
Even though it may seem exhausting, making journalism all the time is also part of the job. “You have to be a journalist 24 hours a day, because the things that happen in society don’t cease to be important to the public just because you’re not at work. But, simultaneously, if you keep this up all the time, to the point of burnout, you can’t break the bubble [of journalism] or even enjoy your own life”, says Gustavo. Another aspect of journalism is that it’s impossible to stop consuming it when you work in the field. It’s important to stay informed during the day-off to avoid disrupting the thinking and writing process at work, but that could mean giving up a carefree lifestyle outside of work. The biggest problem might be the way journalists conciliate work and life, and to understand that those things can be separated sometimes.
The right to rest is frequently compromised and affected by a lack of infrastructure, as there aren’t always other journalists available to cover for those who are off duty. The labor market demands even greater productivity with fewer workers, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence. Even so, it’s very important to try to find ways to disconnect from the workplace and mindset. Ávila, for example, enjoys the bohemian atmosphere of city bars in the company of good friends, in addition to playing sports and visiting cultural centers, all as a way to take his mind off his work for a while.
Being a journalist can mean always being a journalist, but at the same time, if you don’t step back from that role, it’s hard to see things from an outside perspective. Looking for cultural, political, social and even personal experiences is also significant for journalistic work, but, most importantly, it’s crucial for the worker’s life. It’s common for journalists to mix all these references to the point where they end up unable to find ways to separate their work from their personal lives, leading to a state of burnout and fatigue.
With each passing year, the desire for profitable productivity grows stronger. Cases of burnout are on the rise every year, and the fast pace of society may be the main cause of all of this: with a growing need to work as hard as possible, many people forget to live outside of work. The fetishization of productivity in the workplace — and even outside of it, including in our free time — affects not only the final working product but also, and most importantly, the way we understand our daily routine. For journalists, with the increased workload due to budget cuts and the replacement of jobs by artificial intelligence, the demand is even higher. And this is where the danger of romanticizing 24 hours journalism becomes most apparent: it’s unsustainable to live off work all the time.
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The article below was edited by Eloá Costa.
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