More than half of journalists in the U.S. considered quitting their job this year due to exhaustion or burnout, according to a new report by Muck Rack.
The report, which was released Tuesday, examines the state of work-life balance in journalism. Muck Rack surveyed 402 journalists in August and found that 40% have previously quit a job due to burnout. That statistic, along with the finding that 56% of journalists have thought about quitting this year, was “staggering,” said the report’s author, Matt Albasi.
“It means we have to have half as many journalists in the wings waiting to move in next year,” said Albasi, a data journalist at Muck Rack. “And we’re going to lose all this institutional knowledge if these people actually do leave.”
One potential reason that figure is so high is because this year is an election year, Albasi said. Newsrooms are putting resources towards covering the election, and that energy shift affects all desks. This is the first time Muck Rack has surveyed journalists about burnout, and Albasi said he doesn’t expect the figure to be as high when he redoes the survey next year.
The journalists surveyed reported that their primary sources of stress include their workload, salary and the expectation that they always be “on.” Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they work more than 40 hours a week, and the vast majority, or 80%, said they work outside regular business hours at least once a week.
At work, many said they were juggling multiple projects at once. More than 60% said they work on more than four stories a week.
When journalists do get time away from their job, they often find that their work creeps in. Nearly 70% of respondents said their vacation days have been interrupted by work. Roughly 40% of journalists said their workload is a major barrier to using their vacation days.
Albasi said he was struck by the proportion of journalists — 96% — who said they at least sometimes have trouble “switching off” after work.
“They said they always have to be ‘on.’ And I think journalists feel that: ‘Every conversation is a potential lead. Every new person is a new source. Everything I do is feeding back into my work,’” Albasi said. “To me, that goes right into burnout. How can you expect to constantly be running and running and running all the time if you’re never able to sit down and put journalism away for a minute?”
That mentality was on display at the Online News Association’s annual conference last week, said Albasi, who was in attendance. Many participants would rush out of a conference room, grab their laptops and head for the nearest lounge or table so that they could jump back into their work.
“Conferences are supposed to be a place where you work, sure, but it’s supposed to be fulfilling, right? You’re supposed to be bettering yourself and learning new things,” Albasi said. “So the fact that you see these people have to run out and then immediately get right back to the grindstone is, I think, indicative of that burnout.”
The report comes less than a week after an announcement that showed that even the most highly rewarded journalists experience burnout. ESPN’s NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski on Wednesday said he was leaving the network — and a $20 million contract — for a job as general manager of the St. Bonaventure University’s men’s basketball team. Wojnarowski wrote on X that the commitment required by his journalism job was no longer one he wanted to make: “Time isn’t in endless supply and I want to spend mine in ways that are more personally meaningful.”
The report suggests two ways newsrooms can better support their journalists. One is offering employees more of a choice in where they do their work since many journalists said their current work arrangement doesn’t align with their preferences. Only 11% of respondents said they prefer an in-office work arrangement, while 45% preferred a hybrid setup and 44% wanted to be fully remote. However, 17% currently work in the office, while 29% have a hybrid schedule and 54% are fully remote.
Newsrooms could also do a better job of offering journalists mental health services. Nearly 60% said their workplace does not offer any such services, and 17% said they were not sure.
“Less than a quarter, so 24%, have access to mental health resources,” Albasi said. “That is a relatively easy fix that can have massive implications.”
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