Prerequisites and Personnel : Television and Newspaper Differences in Hiring Strategies

This study examines whether, as competition for readers and viewers increases among news producers, media organizations are focusing on hiring individuals whose talents most reflect the specific communication strengths and style of a particular medium, or whether news executives still seek more traditional journalistic skills in applicants. The study also examined differences in the types of application materials news executives require applicants to submit, and compared those responses to what recently hired employees reported being asked to submit by their employers. The study used data from three national surveys conducted in the Spring of 1996. The first was the Jane Pauley Task Force national survey of television news directors. The second was a national survey of daily newspaper editors, and the third was a national survey of recent graduates of four-year journalism and mass communication programs. The study found that news executives appear more likely to use traditional journalistic skills when describing an ideal applicant. However, even more important than such skills for both media types were the personality characteristics of new employees. Thus, news executives appear to place more importance on hiring good employees than on hiring good journalists. The results of the study also have important methodological implications for future research in the area. News directors and news editors were found to describe the language capabilities they seek in applicants very differently, which may be important to question construction for research into television and newspaper news processes. Large and fairly consistent discrepancies also were found between what television news directors reported they use to evaluate applicants and what recently hired employees reported being asked to submit. This finding suggests some caution may be necessary when evaluating the validity of self-report data from the television news industry. Media Prerequisites and Personnel: Television and Newspaper Differences in Hiring Strategies