✍️✍️ Job Deadlines ✍️✍️ — June 17
Plus Digital News Report 2022 trends and deadlines at the BBC, The Times, Hearst, Human Rights Watch, European Journalism Center, Liverpool Echo, Amnesty International and Bell Media
Hey folks, happy Friday! We’re in the midst of a sweltering heatwave in London, so I’ll be out enjoying the glorious sunshine all weekend. It’s always fascinating and hilarious how quick we all are to bask in the sun because, especially in the UK, we know the rain is only a matter of days away.
Before I space out with some frozen cocktails, I want to divert you to this excellent piece by The Telegraph’s Lucy Burton on how the tiredness epidemic in the office is a sign of bureaucratic bloat. Lucy insightfully taps into our cultural obsession with productivity and exhaustion, and questions those core beliefs.
Also happening this week was the release of the 2022 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and University of Oxford. Indeed there seems to be a new report of some kind released weekly, but the DNR is among the most definitive and comprehensive, and certainly one I turn to for the latest trends. I’ve highlighted some of those new insights below all the jobs stuff. 👍
Be sure to check out our featured jobs below including at USA Today, Punchbowl News and Radio Free Europe. And also Monday’s jobs update where we have new openings from the likes of ABC, BBC, Deutsche Welle, El País, Euronews, NPR, Paramount, Politico, The Athletic and VICE. And I also shed some thoughts on opinion journalism, after Gannett made the announcement that it’ll be scaling back its opinions and editorials going forward.
Okay, let’s do this thing and get out of here. Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you again Monday! 👋
Job Corner
✍️ Want to have a job featured? Fill out this form and we’ll help you out ✍️
🚨 Featured Postings 🚨
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
USA Today
Graphics Developer | Graphics Reporter
Location: McLean, VA
Requirements: Passion for news, data, technology and design
Deadline: Rolling
Punchbowl News
Location: Washington, D.C./Baltimore
Requirements: Interest in financial services, Wall Street and the power players in the industry
Deadline: Rolling
🇪🇺🇬🇧🇪🇺🇬🇧
Radio Free Europe
Location: Remote
Experience: 2-5 years
Deadline: Rolling
Associate Digital Strategy Manager, Analytics | Associate Digital Strategy Manager, Safety | Associate Digital Strategy Manager, Subscriptions
Location: Remote
Experience: 1 year
Deadline: Rolling
Preview of Upcoming Deadlines 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇺🇨🇦
Digital News Report 2022
This year’s DNR surveyed more than 93,000 online news consumers across 46 countries. The report covered a plethora of topics and below are three that stood out to me. You can access the report’s data here and all the highlights of the report here.
Leave Me Alone
Among this year’s most noticeable trends is the increase in apathy toward consuming news. The selective avoidance of news has risen sharply in many nations around the world, including doubling in Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) in the past five years.
The most common reasons include too much coverage on politics and Covid-19, news having a negative effect on one’s mood, and the lack of trust and unbiased news. And a significant proportion of younger and less educated people avoid news “because it can be hard to follow or understand – suggesting that the news media could do much more to simplify language and better explain or contextualise complex stories.”
Fair Coverage?
Among the myriad of consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western outlets were again thrust into the spotlight over their coverage compared to wars in other continents. Legitimate arguments exist for and against. The West's historic involvement and provocation of conflict in the Middle East, for example, garnered comparisons between coverage of events in Ukraine and recent wars in the likes of Syria and Yemen.
Ultimately, coverage comes down to proximity and data. Sadly there’s always going to be reporters who lack necessary context, about the history of civilizations for example. There’s simply no excuses for that level of ignorance considering the Middle East is home to some of the earliest civilizations in history. But whether it’s fair or not to suggest organizations should stray away from what their audiences want is unrealistic and to label entire newsrooms racist isn’t appropriate. As the below chart shows, even within Europe, countries closest to conflict will inevitably be more interested.
Trust Me Damn It
And lastly, publishers continue to struggle with a lack of trust from audiences. For me, this is the most frustrating and depressing trend of all. Not just because only 32% of people trust news websites to use their personal data responsibly — comparable to online retailers such as Amazon. But also because I can’t remember a time when journalism didn’t face a trust crisis. No matter the record-low trust in other other industries including politics, social media and even travel, credible journalism must be the one constant in our lives that we can all rely on when we need it most.
And with that dose of idealism, I’ll head into the weekend and pretend none of this is real. 👋
