TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85Th, Miami, Florida, August 5-8, 2002)
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 473 786 CS 511 771 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, Florida, August 5-8, 2002). Newspaper Division. PUB DATE 2002-08-00 NOTE 599p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 511 769-787. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) Reports Research (143) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF03/PC24 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Decision Making; Diversity (Institutional); Electronic Mail; Electronic Text; Employment Level; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; *Journalism Education; Labor Turnover; Mass Media Role; *Media Coverage; *Newspapers; Preservation; Proofreading; Reader Response; Records Management; Teacher Attitudes; World Wide Web IDENTIFIERS Afghanistan; Chernobyl Disaster; Civic Journalism; Congress; Environmental Reporting; *News Sources; North Korea; September 11 Terrorist Attacks 2001; Supreme Court; Three Mile Island ABSTRACT The Newspaper Division of the proceedings contains the following 21 papers: "Exploring the Turnover Issue: Why Newspaper Reporters Intend to Quit Their Jobs" (Li-jing Arthur Chang); "Reporters, Robes, and Representative Government" (William Dale Harrison); "Above the Fold: The Implications of Micro-Preservation to the Analysis of Content Importance in Newspapers" (John E. Newhagen); "How Many News People Does a Newspaper Need?" (Philip Meyer and Minjeong Kim); "New(s) Players and New(s) Values? A Test of Convergence in the Newsroom" (Frank E. Fee, Jr.); "Newspaper Editors' and Educators' Attitudes About Public Trust, Media Responsibility and Public Journalism" (Tom Dickson and Elizabeth Topping); "The Non-Linear Web Story: An Assessment of Reader Perceptions, Knowledge Acquisition and Reader Feedback" (Wilson Lowrey); "Whose Values Are News Values? What Jodrnalists and Citizens Want" (Frank E. Fee, Jr.); "On the Straight and Narrative: The Effect of Writing Style on Readers' Perceptions of News Story Quality" (Jean Kelly, Jan Knight, Jason Nedley, Lee Peck, and Guy Reel); "The Impact of Public Ownership, Profits and Competition on Number of Newsroom Employees and Starting Salaries in Mid-Sized Daily Newspapers" (Alan Blanchard and Stephen Lacy); "Framing a Mysterious Evil: U.S. Newspapers' Coverage of North Korean Leader Kim Jong II, 1994-2000" (Kwangjun Heo); "The Romance and Reality of Copy Editing: A Newsroom Case Study" (Glen L. Bleske); "Sourcing Patterns of National and Local Newspapers: A Community Structure Perspective" (Yonghoi Song); "A Different Nuclear Threat: A Comparative Study of the Press Coverage of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident and the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident in Two Soviet and Two American Elite Newspapers" (Elza Ibroscheva); "The Use of Electronic Mail as a Newsgathering Resource" (Bruce Garrison); "Watching the Watchdogs: An Ethnomethodological Study of News Decision Making At A Small Midwestern Newspaper" (Dharma Adhikari, Tracy Everbach and Shahira Fahmy); "'Portraits of Grief,' Reflectors of Values: The 'New York Times' Remembers Victims of September 11" (Janice Hume); "Prepared for Crisis? Breaking Coverage of September 11th on Newspaper Web Sites" (Quint Randle, Lucinda Davenport and Howard Bossen); "Practicing Diversity: An Exploratory Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Study of Implementing Diversity in the Newsroom" (Anne Johnston and Dolores Flamiano); "No Exceptions to the Rule: The Ubiquity of Journalism Norms Throughout 29 Years of Environmental Movement Coverage" (Linda Jean Kensicki); "News From Afghanistan: How Five U.S. Newspapers Covered the Taliban Before. Sept. 11, 2001" (Beverly Horvit). (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, FL, August 5-8, 2001): Newspaper Division. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY \T Etc ( TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. BIEST COPYAVAILABLE Exploring the Turnover Issue Exploring the Turnover Issue: Why Newspaper Reporters Intend to Quit Their Jobs Submitted by Li-jing Arthur Chang Li-jing Arthur Chang Assistant Professor School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University 31 Nanyang Link Singapore 637718 Republic of Singapore Tel: (65)790-5773 Email: [email protected] Submitted to Newspaper Division Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Rhonda Gibson University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication CB#3365 Carroll Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365 April 1, 2002 3 Exploring the Turnover Issue Abstract This study explores factors behind newspaper reporters' turnover intentions and the link between their intent to leave their newspapers and their intent to leave journalism. A total of 361 Texas newspaper reporters were surveyed. Findings showed that overall job satisfaction, pay, staff size, age, gender, and marital status affect newspaper reporters' turnover intentions. The reporters' intent to leave their newspapers is also found to be a significant predictor of theirintent to leave journalism. 14 Exploring the Turnover Issue Introduction Turnover of the newspaper journalists has become an important issue for at least four reasons: (1) turnover of newspaper reporters has been higher than other professions of comparable status (Fedler, Buhr & Taylor, 1988; Moss, 1978; Tharp, 1991); (2) high turnover is costly as additional operational costs incur after each employee leaves an organization (White, 1995); (3) newspapers need to cut costs as they have been suffering from readership losses (Dizard, 1994); and (4) newspapers need to find ways to keep their talents to provide quality news content amid competition from other media such as television and the Internet (Dizard, 1994; Sohn, Wicks, Lacy & Sylvie, 1999). The turnover issue dose not concern the newspaper industry alone. As an issue of great interest to many other professions, employee turnover has been a highly popular research topic (Bluedorn, 1982a; Mobley, Griffeth, Hand & Meglino, 1979; Muchinsky & Morrow, 1980). Over the last century, an estimate of more than 1,500 publications have addressed the topic of turnover (Muchinsky & Morrow, 1980). One apparent reason for the popularity is the fact that turnover is costly for any organization (White, 1995; Joinson, 2000). When anemployee leaves an organization, there are both direct (i.e., out-of-pocket) and indirect costs involved (Joinson, 2000). The direct costs include layoff and hiring costs (Bertola, 1992) while indirect costs may come from a need for replacement training, unabsorbed workload, loss of profit contribution, lost business opportunities, and a "brain drain" after employees left (Joinson, 2000; Mirvis & Lawler, 1977, Tharp, 1991). If direct and indirect costs are added together, the turnover costs for an employee could be as high as over $4,000 to $10,000 (Joinson, 2000). 2 Exploring the Turnover Issue While turnovers are expensive, certain turnovers are not entirely bad for a newspaper (e.g., turnovers allowing the hiring of more bright reporters) (Moss, 1978). However, since turnover involves substantial personnel costs and a possible drain of experienced reporters, understanding how turnover occurs to avoid undesirable turnovers will benefit newspapers (Moss, 1978; White, 1995). Toward the end of minimizing the negative impact from reporter turnovers, it would make more sense to probe turnover intensions (i.e., intent for turnover), more so than to study the actual turnover, as the former concerns currentemployees, while the later only addresses past employees (Birdseye & Hill, 1995; Werbel & Bedeian, 1989). In addition, research on turnover intentions is very useful because reviews on past research showed that turnover intentions is a strong predictor of job turnover (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986; Steel & Ovalle, 1984). Knowing the reasons behind turnover intent is therefore useful to newsroom managers who try to prevent undesirable turnovers. Literature Review Factors behind turnover intentions Past research on journalists and other professions has shown that the following factors are likely to influence newspaper reporters' turnover intentions: (1) overall job satisfaction (Jenkins, 1993; Parasuraman, 1982; Tharp, 1991; Water & Roach, 1979; Weaver, & Wilhoit, 1996), (2) pay (Cook & Banks, 1993; Fedler et al., 1988; Kraut, 1975; Tharp, 1991, Weaver, & Wilhoit, 1996), (3) staff size (Bergen & Weaver, 1988; Cook & Banks, 1993; Moss, 1978; Tharp, 1991), and (4) demographic variables such as age (Miller & Wheeler, 1992; Moss, 1978; Tharp, 1991;Werbel & Bedeian, 1989), gender (Chusmir, 1984; Cook & Banks, 1993; Moss, 1978; Tharp, 1991), martial 3 Exploring the Turnover Issue status (Arnold & Feldman, 1982; Moss, 1978), and education (Bluedorn, 1982b; Martin, 1979). (1) Overall job satisfaction Empirical evidence showed that overall job satisfaction has an inverse relationship with turnover intentions for non-journalism employees (Jenkins, 1993; Parasuraman,