WORKING PRACTICES

New media working threatens to be a licence for unscrupulous companies to flog their journalists for extra skills and longer working days without any extra pay. Few companies seem to have matched the expansion of their online operations by recruiting extra staff to satisfy the raging appetite for new media output – this despite the fact that much of it, such as podcasting and vidcasting, is more time consuming to package and deliver.

The commission survey showed:

• 25% said new media working had resulted in changes to their shift patterns.
• 37% respondents to the survey said journalists covering all media now worked longer hours.
• 32% respondents said the longer hours breached the negotiated NUJ agreement.

An alarming statistic that came out of the survey is that 75%of respondents felt that integration had led to increased workloads for some or all staff, across all sectors of the union. This is backed up by almost every case study carried out by the commission.

In some cases, internet work has been introduced voluntarily with staff being asked whether or not they wish to train in online working. But in the majority of cases, compulsory online working has been imposed with little or no negotiation with the union.

WORKING HOURS

Journalism has never been a 9-5 culture. But the willingness of professionals to go the extra mile to get the job done properly puts them at risk of exploitation in the context of new media that require a constant supply of material as companies shift to publishing online around the clock.

In the survey, 37 per cent of respondents said their members were now working beyond their hours. But even the 63 per cent who do not are feeling much more pressure to do the extra work within them. It seems that companies are more intent on squeezing the maximum out of staff when they are in the office rather than forcing them to work over the hours. But this is resulting in increased stress levels, which are now impacting on the health of members.

One union rep on a Johnston Press title said:

“The website has created a massive amount of extra work. While we currently do not generally work any extra hours over our shifts, all subs are working constantly with no downtime between deadlines. This means there is no thinking time to be creative, or reading time to catch up on different news stories locally or nationally.

“Members are fed up with it and hoping the union will take a lead in sorting this situation out.

“Some general reporters who are asked by the news desk to produce a video report on an evening event will be forced to come back to the office once the job is finished to create a video report to go online as well as write up the piece for the print edition. Then they will be back in first thing in the morning. A job that could have taken them two hours, now takes four. In principle, they ARE entitled to the hours back. In reality, getting time off in lieu of extra hours is very, very hard. They are at the sharp end of the changes.”

There are obvious limits to using lieu time as a satisfactory mechanism to compensate for excessive hours in workplaces where there are insufficient staff to meet the twin demands of traditional and new media. The temptation not to claim accrued overtime because of the extra pressure it would impose on overstretched colleagues is clearly there.

The chapel at the Oxford Mail held a ballot for industrial action over the way owners Newsquest were introducing “web first”publishing. The ballot was only narrowly won, and instead the chapel opted to monitor workloads and hours and challenge the company on contractual or health and safety grounds if necessary.

THE BBC

At the BBC, a growing number of TV and radio correspondents are having to contribute to the website on the stories they are covering. Deadlines have been established for correspondents to file colour/analysis to the website within a certain period after a story has broken, and those boundaries will likely shift again as the new multi-media newsroom takes shape in 2008. Likewise, specialist online correspondents are increasingly being asked to make themselves available for radio and TV two-ways.

News website journalists frequently gather audio for

the site, and have routinely been taking photographs for years, although the site still retains a picture desk, with two professional photographers who are used mainly for feature work.

As BBC News becomes integrated there is a feeling the pressure to deliver across all outlets will increase. While many journalists are keen to take on new skills, the main concerns are around increasing workloads and longer days, plus the potential dilution of skills. One BBC rep said:

There is some resistance to journalists being expected to “go out and do everything” and a sense that journalists with additional new media skills, such as video, stand a better prospect of gaining paid work online than those with only writing skills.

ADDITIONAL ROLES

In some places journalists are having to take on roles even in excess of the technological requirements of digital media. On Archant newspapers, web workers are expected to work “as a customer help desk”, where they are expected to respond to readers’requests, queries, etc.

The growth of email has increased the proliferation of disgruntled or curious readers writing directly to journalists to pick up on an interesting point, disagree, or contest the facts. Once designated for the letters’page, the expectation that web journalists will commune directly with their readers can be a time-consuming distraction from their core duties and responsibilities. It suggests“customers relations”on the cheap as journalists are expected to enshrine this PR role in the fabric of their increasingly demanding working day.

The Guardian is pushing web reporters to engage their readership communities – which managers call “customers” – online. The time consuming exercise of aggregating the most interesting blogs on a given topic is increasingly encouraged. The reporter is expected to reply to posts on their blog of aggregated blogs to keep the debate flowing and to take responsibility for ensuring the conversation doesn’t descend into vitriol and abuse. Journalists who have failed to adopt the right Guardian“voice”or felt provoked by the level of personal abuse thrown their way have been pulled aside. The practice also raises questions about the reporter as a “personality”giving his/her own opinions on their area of professional expertise.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Journalists, probably even more than most other workers, are beginning to use such sites as Myspace, Facebook and Bebo, as a source of material as well as social networking. The NUJ has one of the biggest union groups on Facebook in the world, with well over 1,000 members.

Some employers have banned the use of social networking sites at work, and while it is their right to decide how their IT systems are used, it would be counterproductive, to say the least, to attempt to restrict such activity by journalists. The same would go for email, which journalists must be able to use freely. For employees’job security, chapels should ensure that their companies have fair and clear policies internet policies, negotiated with the union, which allow such online activity – including for NUJ business.

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