The Washington Post has launched a new “community reporter” position that requires more skills than a typical reporter and pays less.
What a new media double whammy!
In a letter to the newspaper guild that represents Post workers, the Post says the Community Journalist will write for the paper’s Extras, Web, and the daily paper and perform multimedia work, all for $34,000 a year.
34k in the District? Sign me up!
This position requires reporters to produce content for three different entities and in a variety of formats. Just to be clear how highly the Post thinks of this position, it’s warns those applying for it that they should not expect to be promoted to reporter.
What is a reporter exactly? Well, at most papers it’s very similar to this “community reporter” position, minus all that fancy Web work. But I digress.
Here is where the serious part of my post begins.
This is what the Post should do instead
Forget this shallow attempt at staffing the newsroom for less. Make this a real community journalist position. Make the main requirement of this position that a person already lives in the community they will cover.
No more bringing in candidates from outside the region to cover communities they know nothing about. Heck, I live in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., and I don’t think I’m qualified to cover Arlington or inside the District. Get people from Georgetown to cover Georgetown and people from Silver Spring, Maryland to cover Silver Spring.
That’s what a real community journalist does.
But here is the real kicker. $34,000 is too much for this position. Let’s slash the pay to $25,000-30,000. Let’s get rid of those expensive benefits.
Instead, make this position 20 hours a week or so. Yes, this will be a part-time job, and it doesn’t come with benefits. It’s also a telecommuting position, because I want community reporters to be out in the communities they cover, not stuck in a newsroom.
Encourage these community journalists to have other jobs. Maybe they’ll be local baristas or office workers or shop owners. Maybe someone who covers a government worker beat — gasp — works for the government. We want these people to have other jobs in the community.
I would give these community reporters their own beatblogs. In fact, their main focus would be on filling these beatblogs with great content (written, audio, video, photo, etc) and interacting with users. They would build networks of sources from within the community and online.
They would hold weekly office hours, ala Monica Guzman. They would be active on social media. They would carry a digital camera, laptop and smartphone with them wherever they went.
They would be a part of the community. That’s why the position should be part time. We want them to have another job, because we want these people to be a part of the communities they are covering.
That’s the point.
And get this, we’re not going to require them to have a journalism degree or journalism background. If they have a blog and understand social media and multimedia, that’s good enough for me. It’s more important to me for them to be of the community and to understand it rather than to have institutional knowledge of journalism. Plus, I don’t want to have to deal with teaching journalists “new” media.
For those of you who think $30,000 is a lot for a part-time job (especially one based on a $34,000 full-time job), consider this: we’re not paying benefits or retirement, we’re not training them on any newsroom systems, we’re not buying them computers, cameras, smartphones, desks, office space, etc. That all costs a lot of money, and could easily double or triple the $34,000 salary. Instead, these people will be independent contractors, and they’ll bring their own equipment (this can all be written off come tax time).
The possibilities to reinvent journalism are endless.
Instead, it’s clear to me that the Post is only interested in saving money, not in saving journalism.
