Staffing and Workload | Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)

March 13, 2006

The long-term picture for staffing and workload in network news has been grim. As the networks have seen their audiences cut in half, putting huge pressures on revenue, they have repeatedly cut staff.

One strong indication of that came from researchers counting how many different correspondents appeared on the news programs each year. Joe Foote at Arizona State University tracked the pattern over 20 years and found that the number of reporters who appeared on network news had declined by more than a third from its peak in 1985, from 76.7 to 50 in 2002. That is a drop of 35%.

That reduction in staff in turn meant an increase in reporter workload. In 1985, reporters appearing in evening newscasts did an average of 31.4 stories a year. By 2002, that number had climbed to 40.9, according to Foote.

Research by Andrew Tyndall’s ADT Research has tracked a similar decline using a slightly different sample. (Tyndall tracks newscasts on weekdays; Foote, who ended his research in 2003, on all seven days.)

In 2005, data from Andrew Tyndall’s ADT Research found basically no change from a year ago in the number of correspondents or in the number of stories being done.

There are, however, differences by network, or at least at one network.

The CBS “Evening News” continues to have notably fewer correspondents than NBC or ABC (about 15% fewer) doing substantially more work.

In 2004, by Tyndall’s count, NBC had 46 correspondents averaging 39 stories each (to be counted, a correspondent had to produce at least 5 stories during the year). In 2005, the figure changed just slightly with 45 correspondents averaging 39 reports. Tyndall notes that “Nightly News’s” anchor, Brian Williams, did more field reporting than his predecessor, Tom Brokaw, meaning fewer correspondents were used.

At ABC, the network in 2004 had 47 correspondents producing on average even fewer pieces, 35 a year. Those figures remained the same in 2005.

In 2004, at CBS, there were only 39 correspondents, with an average of 46 stories. In 2005, the folks at CBS continued to be the network workhorses with 41 correspondents averaging 44 reports.

While there are no comparable data for off-air personnel, most people in network TV whom the authors of this report have talked to over the years acknowledge that the cutbacks in such staff members are probably comparable or even greater as technology has reduced the number of people necessary to produce television news programming.

What to make of those numbers each year is always a matter of some debate. Some argue that fewer reporters are necessary today because technology makes it is easier for reporters to “front” stories that are developed by other staff people and using feed material. A reporter need not always be on the scene. That may even be advantageous; a reporter can integrate material from more sources. Others argue that having a correspondent assemble material back in a bureau or in New York makes for a less informed, more generic kind of coverage, lacking feel or deeper knowledge of the situation. Either way, the assembly approach is a major change in TV newsgathering.

It is also impossible to know from the data whether all the cutbacks in staff have occurred because of increased productivity or whether productivity has been increased because there have been so many cutbacks. Nor can we know whether those two trends are in balance.