IS LOCAL NEWS “TOO BIG TO FAIL”?

I watched a documentary this week called “The Flaw”. It’s about the 2008 housing crisis, what lead to it (going back to the 1920s) and what went wrong. In watching, I saw a lot of parallels building in edit bays, news vehicles, control rooms, conference rooms, and board rooms across the great world of Journalism.

It was as eye-opening as “Too Big To Fail” was for me about the housing crisis. Here's a real quick summary of what went wrong, according to Too Big To Fail. I think the acting in this movie is purely spectacular.

I had to wonder - is Local News in the category of "Too Big To Fail"? We know we are NEEDED in our communities, but as more people walk out the door or leave just months into a new contract, are we devouring ourselves? Or are we resting on 2008 notions that we won't fail?

Many of you have read Ty Carver’s post title “Extinction Alert” and the onslaught of messages he got in the aftermath of that seismic post many are thinking but are too scared to say out loud. This is not a Doomsday warning, but it is a warning. He sees firsthand how people who once fought to work in this business are now fighting to get out.

It has started discussions on newsletters, stations, and corporate offices across the country. Heck, even now as I sit unemployed I wonder if local news is the right path to take with an uncertain future.

Many of you won't recognize this creature, and even more, won't know him when I say his name. This is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. He's from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", one way I can nerd out with people who are fellow nerds. If you know the answer to life, the universe, and everything - you are in my tribe.

Here's the thing. This beast is powerful, controlling, and will eat anything, ANYTHING, in his path. He's a complicated dude. He can destroy anything in his path, but before he eats people he will ask their names so he can put them on a memorial.

But he's not very smart. He's a dim-witted carnivore. He's SO dim, that he believes if you can't see him he can't see you, so you just need to take your handy towel (Hitchhiker's Fans will get that one), or cover your eyes. Then he's stumped. You can also carve your name into the memorial when he's not looking. He will then think he just forgot he ate you, despite the fact that you are standing there.

We need to know the beast we are fighting and all its flaws so we can work around the thing that is eating away at our local news talent on the ground level.

Once you know the monster you are up against, you can fight it.

FWIW: The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42. That will come in handy someday, I promise you. I've won over a few engineers knowing HHGTTG speak.

So as I see this beast, I know I can't cover my eyes. I think we shut this monster down by opening our ears.

This isn't about assigning blame. I don't want to do that. My fundamental belief in life, professionally and personally, is fixing problems or being part of the fix. I want to work through problems and refuse to go around them or stick my head in the sand. In the housing crisis, there were plenty to blame. Alan Greenspan took a licking. Even going back to the Ronald Reagan days, he took a bit of the shrapnel. Big banks. Greedy people. A Congress that couldn't play in the sandbox.

One of the biggest "Flaws". Assumption. Assumptions that made sense. Assumptions that were proven wrong in the most massive of ways.

Here's a quote for former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as he was explaining what went wrong and 2008, and don't be surprised with it echoes truth now to what we are dealing with in the journalism world.

"Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework, people deal with reality. Everyone has one, you have to do exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not. And what I'm saying to you is, yes, I've found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent. It is, but I've been very distressed by that facts.. .I found a flaw in the reality or in the model that I perceived is a critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak,.. That's precisely the reason I was shocked because I've been going for 40 years or more, with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." - Alan Greenspan

Sound familiar?

Yeah, we've changed a little in local news, we've adapted to the changes in consumption. Just like everyday people adapted to the availability of credit in 2008. We "assumed" we could do it this way or that way. We took a lot of blows along the way. 2008 hit local news hard, and most of us working then saw GREAT journalists packing up their boxes.

On the weekend of September 13, 2008, it was my birthday weekend. The first without my mother who passed away in July. We needed to make me happy that weekend as depression had set in. We went whitewater rafting on the Colorado River like we didn't have a care in the world.

Meanwhile, the economy was falling apart. Lehman Brothers was less than 48 hours from declaring bankruptcy setting off the spiral.

This is no time to go rafting, my friends.

We've seen this coming for years in local news. The adding a "little bit more" to your job as technology evolved. Learning entirely new ways to produce and direct news as automation came. Having three screens to do 5 jobs that used to take one person each.

Here are some of the parallels I see between now and 2008.

We know what happened next. We don't want to be able to fill out this grid any further. We see the signs. If not, you're just covering your eyes to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

We can analyze the 2008 crisis NOW to see what went wrong, and we can learn from it.

Here are the main issues I've been hearing from people who are leaving the business.

MENTAL HEALTH

That "thing" we never talked about before? Talk about it. Your employees are in chat rooms and text chains. They are burned out, stressed, mentally unfit for the job in front of them because of the stress put on them. We've got to stop the "some people just can't handle this business" talk and re-focus on "how can we morph into a model where people can once again thrive on the stress and not succumb to it?" You've got to fix this problem. It's not only impacting one or two people, it's becoming contagious.

Don't just hand people a sheet for the EAP and think you've "helped". I understand bosses can't dig too deep into people's medical issues. Let's get the great Human Resources minds of this business together to talk about how to address mental health issues and get ahead of them.

The station I worked at during the time that Alison Parker and Adam Ward were shot and killed on TV had a lot of people shook up by it. Tears, screams, questions about staying in the job with dangerous people out there - they were wrecked. Some visibly, others only by the look in their eyes when they thought nobody was looking. I was looking.

I talked to my General Manager and we agreed to bring in two mental health professionals to talk to them about their feelings. They were in a conference room, far from the newsroom, and the option was there "if you want to talk to someone, go ahead, we'll worry about your work later, but no pressure." There was one person, a tough person, who said "Thanks but I don't need it." I walked by hours later to see if the counselors needed water or food, and that person was in there. He stayed for two hours after work. Some people don't ask for help, but they'll take it when it is there. Why not bring a few mental health professionals into a far-off conference room and say "They are there if you need them." You'd be surprised who goes. You'll be even more surprised at the person who comes back, feeling better about life in general and their work.

One idea I saw while researching this article was to have employees take a Myers & Briggs personality test, on their own, but let's do it on the clock. We won't treat it like homework. Then they find out their personality type.

When I learned I was an INFJ, it helped me better understand why I do what I do, and where my fault lines are while seeing my incredible strengths. INFJ is a rare breed, making up only 1%-3% of the population.

I mean seriously, if you know me, could something better describe me than this??

EMPLOYERS: If you are interested in this for your staff, click HERE.

EMPLOYEES: If you want to take a quick free Personality Type Test, click HERE.

When you know the personality of a person you supervise, and their strengths and weaknesses, you can custom tailor your approach to help them thrive and not hide from you. You can treat them in a way that encourages their strengths but improves their weaknesses. They'll know you are coming from a good place, and not a "You'll never make me happy anyway" place.

PAY

The pay is a problem. Long gone are the days of "paying dues" and working for peanuts to get to a bigger market. They are feeling the financial impact now. I don't know why this shift happened (like we didn't know why housing prices were going down in 2008). I didn't LIKE making $8 an hour and then $26k a year in my first two jobs, but I saw the forest through the trees. Now people see it through a desert with no end in site. I did a survey asking anonymous people what they make now vs what they think they should make. Below are the averages of how much more money people want to make them stay. How much money to keep a hard-working employee. In some specific cases, you are $4k away from poking the bubble with a pin.

I am aware, as you are thinking to yourselves, there isn't this magic pot of money not being used that could be poured into salaries. There is no government bailout for local news. But look at the here and now as if it's 2006, when the housing prices started going down, setting the stage for a global economic meltdown. Everyone thought it would self-correct. It won't. Look at the costs of recruiting (and the portion of a News Director's salary that goes to endless interviews if you don't have recruiters), training, hiring, overtime when someone fills in for open positions. Find the money. Figure it out. I'm no economist or accountant, but there are brilliant people in this business who are. To those around them, open your ear to avoid the Beast.

TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS

Now as a manager, the phrase "toxic" didn't have enough of definition for me. I have worked in places where there were cliques and worked side by side with people I didn't like, but I wouldn't call it Toxic. Then I've work in places so Toxic you needed a gas mask long before COVID. I've also worked in a place where people were family and we got through everything without drama. So I did a survey about what a Toxic Workplace is so I could learn more from employees. People, in general, count on their local managers more than anyone else - by a long shot - to influence the working environment.

We have to confront this situation with additional leadership training, ongoing coaching, research about people entering or new to the workforce and what motivates them, etc. We also need mental health help as well to deal with all the additional stressors of a process that had been "working for 40 years" and has now morphed into watching every. single. word. you say that can be twiste, shared and manipulated.

It doesn't matter to employees, apparently, that the local manager is just doing what corporate ordered them to do. I had one job where I woke up daily to all the things we did wrong from corporate, and while I can't say to the staff "corporate wants it this way" becuse then I lose ALL credibility, but I also need to make the bosses above me happy.

Be consistent in what you want the staff to do. Don't change priorities day by day. Make sure you've got signs, Slack/Teams channels, one-on-one or BootCamp scenarios - all reinforcing the brand and expectations,

FEEDBACK

This is a tricky one. We need to be able to give good, constructive feedback to improve people's performance without always seeming like we're bringing them down. Everyone is different. Recently, I went on a "tour" of sorts as part of my self discovery to talk to former employees. Ones I trust. Ones I might have disagreed with from time to time. The main message? Yes, you were tough. Yes, I am glad you were because I learned a lot from you. There were also eye-opening things that made me re-think the way I handled a situation and how I would handle it going forward.

There's a sense from producers and reporters, the ones I talk with or mentor, that they can have a stellar newscast or story, and all they percieve they get is negative feedback and what they could have done better. That, on the surface, makes sense. (So did giving people low-interest rates to buy homes). It's below the surface that matters. They feel clobbered by the negativity on a job well done. But they also want feedback.

I had once where someone complained about me. In the emails, there was one bullet point saying I didn't pay enough attention to this person and I was leaving them to figure out their job without guidance. Two bullet points later I was a micromanager "to the extreme" and was giving too much feedback. It was a situation I couldn't win. Even the people I reached out to for guidance on how to find the balance didn't help me. When I asked this person how to rectify the situation, the answer was "I just want to tell you what I want to do and I want you to support it."

But we've got to figure out the magic balance of giving feedback and making people better without shattering their mental health. It has to start from the top down. It has to be part of the culture. I wrote a promo once that I felt was pretty darn good, and I sent it to someone who I knew was going to be tough on it, but I wanted the feedback. I wanted to get better. The feedback came in the form of something like "The beginning was good but the ending was f*c**d up." I was devastated for a second, but picked up and moved on. Some people can't stomach that kind of feedback. And that's okay.

I once had a producer who had a lot of breaking news in the newscast. It was early morning news and I was up helping from home. We elevated how we cover breaking news that day, but I felt we missed a few key points. I pondered how to discuss this when I knew the staff was on a "breaking news high". I messaged the producer and said "Excellent work today, we did really well. I do have some feedback to improve. Are you in a mental head space to hear it now?" and this person said "No." Ok, I kept my mouth shut. Was I right or wrong? I don't know. But the "Feedback" problem is gutting our employees one way or the other.

STAFFING

We've consolidated, cut back, and cut costs to an extreme, whether it was the housing crisis, the takeover of a company, or just re-evaluating the staff. We've cut way too close to the jugular.

I've personally seen situations where I have to keep positions open to make budget for the quarter. I've seen secret "hiring freezes" we can't talk about that, in turn, make the employees think I'm an idiot who can't hire. I've heard that from other News Directors too. One told me, "So I'm new in my role here, and I've got 5 positions open. They won't let me fill them right now. Now my staff thinks I am such a bad boss I can't find people to work here and they blame me for their schedule shifts."

On the same token, I GET why this is necessary. Employees at the ground level do not. I don't even know if they'd care. They only see the extra work it's putting on them. Let me help explain this a little bit for the "boots on the ground" reading this. We're a business of transparency so let's be transparent.

• If you are going through a transition to a new company (and it can take a while), you can't change the tangibles of that sale. You can't add 5 new positions in, even if you wanted to. That wasn't part of the deal. You can't ask the new company for permission to hire someone in a certain key role, but you can't make the decision without their blessing. So sometimes that leaves the position in purgatory. You don't want to hire someone who in 6 months gets fired because the new company wants someone else in that role or doesn't find it necessary.

THE MORE YOU KNOW: If you want to read public details of a station ownership change, search HERE.

• If there might be staffing changes coming, like a cutback in staffing by 20%, news is the biggest department and will always take the biggest hit. Sometimes those positions are kept open to keep from having to let people go. So would you rather do a little more work? Or watch your colleagues pack up desks?
• There is no longer a line out the door for applicants. One MMJ job used to get hundreds of applicants. Now we get, at best, 50, more like 20, and only 5 of those are actually qualified for the job. Some bosses just want to fill a seat, others are willing to wait for the right person. That producer you complain about? They were one of 5 people who applied and none of them had experience. We went for best attitude or a previous job in a high stress environment.
• The positions you don't understand. "Why are we hiring XXXX when we need another reporter?" There's always a reason, and those could be a corporate board mandate to keep up with technology, it could be because that particular person will work on a show where we need to get ratings up to make more money.

No matter what the reason, you have to realize the challenges these decisions are putting on the staff and they are hurting. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. They are going out alone in tough situations. They are being harassed by people from crime scenes to ribbon cuttings. They are scared to do the job that almost all of them said: "was my dream from childhood." Let's figure out a way to keep the dream alive. Let's *really re-evaluate staffing. Let the ground level workers give input on that.

BIG LITTLE LIES

There is also a frustration from the ground level that they were lied to or mislead about their role. I recently saw a post where someone said a selling point of their job was that they would have consistency on a schedule, yet came to the station to only find they worked a variety of shifts. I've talked to candidates who work nightside on Friday and produce morning show on Saturday. Yikes. What kind of quality are you getting Saturday morning when you do that?

I once had someone tell me the only reason they came to work at the station was that they were told they'd get to do sports. This person was hired as a reporter. Their eyes were always on sports and the morale of this person was disintegrating before my eyes because they didn't get to do sports and felt lied to. Another time I inherited a sports team of two, and both told me there were verbally promised they'd get to be Sports Director. Tension followed.

We have to be open and transparent with what a position is when we hire people and if we make a promise, put it in writing, and act on it. The words you say are quickly forgotten. Believe me, some bosses will say anything to close to the deal. You think you are going to work for a Tesla. You end up in a Geo Metro with 150,000 miles on it.

Just be honest about what you have open, and if you dangle a carrot, let them get it.

WHERE'S THE FUN?

You are either pumping your fist or rolling your eyes at this statement. As much as higher pay is being demanded in the protests outside fast food restaurants or in the long list of your job openings, they also want to have fun.

Fun fixes things. Fun improves mental health. Fun relieves stress. Fun gives you a reason to come to work when you might otherwise call in sick.

Now what is fun? This generation hears of nap pods, unlimited PTO, game rooms, and free drinks and food. It's team building exercises. It's celebrating a win. It's letting someone take a chance on their idea. It's a group outing, maybe to a dog park if you have a lot of people with dogs. It's a surprise food truck. It's sending the morning team breakfast randomly to thank them for their hard work. It's handwritten notes. It's a basketball hoop outside to blow off some steam. Bringing in a massage therapist.

I'm a video game addict (and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was one of the first games I ever played in 1984 back when it was a text adventure game) and have a love of playing games on my phone. Now I can't sit in my office and play video games while I'm waiting for a meeting that starts in 15 minutes, but if there was a "safe space" or a game room where I could go to blow off some steam, heck yeah I would!

That personality test could help here too - maybe have a team-building exercise where they all take the test and talk about their results.

When the "world was going to end" in December of 2012, I took advantage of it. I hosted an "Apocalyptic Potluck". Everyone brought in the last food they'd ever want to eat.

At FOX5, we regularly decorated desks for people on their birthdays. I even once decorated my boss's parking spot so when he pulled in he knew the embarrassment of decorations he was going to see. Inside it was much fun, especially for a guy who didn't like attention.

There are ways to put some "fun" into the work-life as a general rule, not just an every now and then event. Have you ever noticed how much happier people are when they just come back from a station picnic or event? Make that happen more often.

LIFE BALANCE

This is another hot spot for people. They want to have a work-life balance. They don't want to spend mornings looking for story ideas when they work nightside. They don't want to have to take "just a quick call" on their day off. Bosses don't want to be called on weekends for a day off 6 months from now but "there's a good airfare and I want to lock it down".

To figure out the balance of giving people their lives back, after generations of "We'll celebrate Christmas on the 28th", they want to have holidays off. They want to not be thinking of work outside of work. They don't consistently want to be called in on their day off.

How to do this in a 24/7 world of news that always seems to happen at the worst times? I don't know. Being on call creates stress. There's now a sense among the ground-level workers of "if I overperform and come in when they call me, they are always going to call me and that's not fair.". There's pressure from others around them to NOT come in when that happens because "They (management) need to have more staffing so this isn't a problem."

They are less likely to work the traditional important news hours, like a morning newscast, or just downright adamant they won't work weekends. Is a 4-day workweek the solution to this? Getting 3 days off each week (I, for one, would LOVE that.) Would that make the hours easier to stomach?

Is there a solution if someone is working that odd shift that we, as stations, help them prepare for it? What are the best ways to sleep on an overnight shift? What is the best time to eat? Pay for some blackout blinds and a noise machine so they don't have to come out of pocket for that? Can those people get an extra day off on top of their PTO? Can they get first dibs on free tickets available? Can they get paid more?

This isn't going away. As a self-proclaimed workaholic, I am now pitied instead of praised. People feel I "have no life" because I'm always at work. I even found out a former employee referred to me as a "Single, childless, middle-aged workaholic." A true statement to an extent, but I have an amazing life outside of work.

Some people push for the work-life balance, while I've just recently learned how to do that. Meet people where they are with their needs in life. Let them bring the child to work if daycare is closed, bringing a pet to the newsroom makes a lot of people happy, have someone bring in a hometown treat for the whole staff (and pay for the ingredients) to share a little of their life. (I can't tell you how many gooey-butter cakes I've made for my staff to share a slice of St. Louis life.)

THE FLAW

Now we go back to what I talked about in the beginning. Assumption. One of the biggest failures in 2008 was the "assumption" that housing prices would keep going up - until they didn't. We are too often now "assuming" this problem in local news is going to self-correct. We are hoping to find those people who will work for peanuts and perform like superstars. That's just covering your eyes to the Beast.

In a toxic newsroom study I did, I asked people at work who enjoyed the workplace "What makes it better than others".

Here are some of the responses, keeping ears open, please, to avoid that Beast:

• "Teamwork. Open communication. Ability to get through difficult days without holding grudges about things that didn't go quite right."
• "Understanding bosses. Room for growth. Being heard."
• "My boss appreciates me and is respectful when there's an idea brought to the table that might not work. Sits down with me and really talks about what I've done well and areas I can succeed."
• "Comradery, teamwork, and appreciation for your fellow co-workers. We can't do this job without each other, and yet we try to drag others down, to make it an us vs. them."
• "My current newsroom is good. Management is really supportive and understanding. I feel like I can go to them if I'm struggling. Just having the support really makes a difference."
• "Employees that know to be the best you have to be a NEWS TEAM."
• "Because my boss is caring, understanding of mental health, let's us be creative, hires others who work well with others, and we all mesh."
• "People who are genuinely kind. That doesn't mean they always say what you want to hear or agrees with you, but they care about you as a person, treat or talk to you with respect, and are understanding about mistakes or needs for breaking and they are open to hearing how they can change or do better as well."

We can keep wearing down our managers and our staff, we can keep filling positions like a turnstile, we can keep rolling our eyes at burnout". We can keep making money and putting it elsewhere. We can keep selling sales packages that add more work to the newsroom. We can keep consolidating until one person is doing it all.

But keep in mind, the September 15th of local news is coming.

You don't want the crash we lived on that date in 2008. You need to act and solve now. These employees have so many places and outlets to go to now. Places that didn't exist when the managers got in the business. Heck, even TikTok is recruiting from our business, or rather their extension of our business.

Get everyone together, as the top brass of finance did in 2008, and figure it out, one problem at a time. Be brave enough to be the person who helps save local news.