Journalist Burnout

In his article, posted on the Poynter Institute Web site, affiliate Don Fry suggests that once journalists hit a certain level of competency, they plateau or burnout and simply stop improving. He views this plateau as a crisis that must be fixed; the article suggests causes as well as solutions to this problem.

Causes cited in the article range from lack of skill on the part of the journalist and low expectations from the editor to just plain boredom. Fry suggests:

“The key symptom of burnout is seeing oneself doing the same thing over and over forever, with no way to break out, dreading it.”

While Fry does believe that this is a major problem in the field of journalism, he also believes that there are solutions to aid this issue of journalist burnout. He suggests:

• Change
• Learning New Skills
• Raising Expectations
• Praising Good Work
  

These are a few of the solutions Fry suggests for burnt out journalists, they are explained in detail in his article, “The Perils of Plateau: Helping Stuck Journalists.” To be truly successful in their field aspiring as well as established journalists must be aware of this pitfall, along with its causes and its solutions.