Characters abounded in the first newsroom I worked in. There was the gruff managing editor, who paced around our desks at deadline and growled: “File the story! You’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic!”
Then there was the aggressive and possibly unethical senior reporter who squeezed information out of sources by telling them: “You’re a source or you’re a target.”
One oft-repeated phrase that stuck with me was: “You’re only as good as your last byline.”
At the time, I took it as gospel. Don’t rest on your laurels, kid. Today’s killer scoop will be lining bird cages tomorrow. You need to keep producing bigger and better journalism to really matter in this business.
But over the years, I’ve come to question the wisdom of this saying. It feeds into productivity culture and the insecurity that many journalists harbor — the idea that if we ever pause to savor an accomplishment, we’ll be passed by on the race to a Pulitzer Prize, national correspondent job, or Netflix deal.
This mindset benefits our corporate overlords and venture capital owners. It doesn’t help individual journalists create fulfilling careers, enjoy our lives, or even — I would argue — do our best work. Evidence suggests that self-flagellation and underdog mindsets actually hold us back, whereas cultivating self-compassion and envisioning success boost our performance at work, in athletics, and other high-intensity pursuits.
Moreover, it’s simply not true that we’re judged only by our most recent work. The most-read article I’ve ever written, a 2015 Mother Jones’ piece about an innovative approach to school discipline, continues to attract new readers to this day. I periodically hear from a parent or teacher who said it changed their approach to punishment and motivating children — and their new tactics are working to win kids’ cooperation and improve their mental health. I began reporting that article in 2013, and yet it continues to make an impact and even change lives nearly a decade after publication. I also continue to receive speaking invitations, even though my book about the same subject was published six years ago.
The idea that we must always outdo ourselves is a punishing perspective, given the current climate for media. In the last 18 months, more than 5,000 journalists lost their jobs in mass layoffs, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Those who remain in newsrooms are often doing the job of two or three people, meaning they are barely making daily news deadlines, much less investing in long-term or investigative journalism. It’s a triumph just to make it through a week as a journalist in 2024, much less top your recent accomplishments with new ones. The grind can truly be crushing.
On the freelance side, my colleagues bemoan the difficulty in getting a response from overworked editors right now. One long-time writer recently told me about a story that an editor greenlit, and then never responded — for months. Another, a New York Times bestselling author, grew so discouraged by not hearing back from editors, that she wound up self-publishing the piece she was trying to pitch on her blog.
All this brings me to say, let’s flip the script on productivity culture. Instead of thinking you’re only as good as your last byline, I propose a new mantra: You’re as good as your best byline.
The feature you worked on for months or the investigative reporting that you spent early mornings and weekend hours chipping away at, that you worked on during family vacations, that you felt so passionate about that you stuck with it for years — this is the journalism that will make your name and will stand the test of time. We can’t free every journalist from the 24/7 news cycle, but we can free more if newsrooms reassess what their audiences truly need and heed the damage from burnout.
When we slow down, we can lay the groundwork for deeper reporting and asking tougher questions so the stories we create have more of an impact. That’s how we’ll rebuild trust in media and pride in the jobs that we do. Audiences often reward journalists who take the time to dig and uncover gripping narratives.
The last decade of digital media chasing clicks has left thousands of talented journalists unemployed. Building and maintaining careers in the news business must be a marathon, not a sprint. Those who run too quickly will likely burn out. And, I argue that as an industry, we've prioritized speed over quality to our detriment.
Just as fast fashion is giving way to thrifting and upcycling, I’d like to see journalists move away from mass production. What stories inspire your curiosity? What drives you to dig deeper, question your assumptions, and uncover truths that matter? Be patient. If you listen to that internal voice — and not the insecurity-feeding whispers of what others are doing — you will create work that stands the test of time.
