by Liz Vlahos
This blog was supposed to be about an interview with a renowned journalist, but has evolved into one about obstacles in reporting.
I was initially assigned to search out and interview Lee Cowan, of CBS Sunday Morning, but the obstacle I faced was his production schedule. I was informed that he would be out on assignment and subsequently unable to participate.
As a backup, I was assigned to interview Steven Reiner, formerly the producer for 60 Minutes and currently an associate professor at Stony Brook University. I was looking forward to this one, considering his work. I was formulating questions as I jotted down the famous ten facts about him. I wanted to pick his brain regarding his time at NPR, especially how he juggled being the Washington bureau chief and the senior editor and executive producer for “All Things Considered.” I was especially curious as to how he got NPR’s science reporting unit off the ground, since it came into fruition on his watch. I wanted to ask him, having worked for all three major networks – ABC, NBC and CBS – about the differences in how each network approached reporting the news. I wanted to know the story on “60 Minutes” that stuck with him to this day. I also wanted to ask him how he made the decision to cross over to the academic world, and his thoughts on being an associate professor vice a boots-on-the-ground producer.
I emailed Mr. Reiner, called his office, called his departmental office, and even saw that he had viewed my profile on LinkedIn, which may or may not have been an indication that he had received my communiques. That said, however, I never received a response. I would say that Mr. Reiner’s academic schedule may have been an obstacle, but the lack of a response on his part was frustrating considering Lee Cowan’s producer, Rand Morrison, got back to me within a day or two in comparison. (This is not an expression of ill will toward Mr. Reiner, I wish to clarify.). The lack of a response, as well as the encroaching uncertainty, was indeed a formidable obstacle as well.
As frustrating as these obstacles were, however, I have learned first-hand about another obstacle – a significant one, in fact, that poses a threat to every journalist, whether in the classroom or out in the field. This particular obstacle can greatly affect your ability to deal with the plethora of other obstacles faced by journalists every day.
That obstacle is burnout.
Although the impact of burnout may hit you like a baseball bat to the face, the onset is nowhere as blatant; this insidious beast slowly sneaks up on you.
Burnout almost never stems from one particular stressor, and the stressor can be either professional or personal. It can be a multitude of stressors that in and of themselves seem relatively mild from an outsider’s perspective, but when piled upon one another can slowly start to weigh you down, much like the world on Atlas’ shoulders. Tasks you once whizzed through as though they were second nature become a Sisyphean struggle to complete, and they continue to pile up at your previous rate of completion, effectively burying and overwhelming you. Before you know it, you find yourself choking on the same obstacles you used to eat for breakfast without a second thought, you’re rushing to meet deadlines where you normally would have been light-years ahead, and you start to feel exhausted; whatever rest you take never seems to be enough to recharge. Before you know it, you dread coming into work, and the very thing that sparked you into going into journalism, whatever it may have been, is either gone or in danger of disappearing.
As scary as burnout is in general, here’s what’s particularly daunting about it: It can hit you at any stage in your career, whether you’re on the job or in school. When it hits you in school, it can be especially frightening.
Experiencing burnout while you’re still in school can create a particularly disturbing sense of doubt within, making you question whether you’re really cut out for this particular line of work. It can create a multitude of troubling questions within your brain, among them, “How can I handle the demands of the newsroom or this industry as a whole if I’m barely staying on top of my academic obligations right now?” The existential crisis from burning out before your career has even taken flight can destroy your confidence and make you question whether all your hard work as a student journalist has gone to waste.
If I hear back from Mr. Reiner, I will be more than happy to pick his brain with the questions I scribbled out for him. I would also ask him if he has ever felt the sinister dulcet whisper of burnout, and if he has how he managed to bounce back; if he hasn’t, I would ask how he managed to stay ahead of this beast. Either way, I would pass on that information; it’s something every journalist needs to know.