Long hours “are killing journalism”

The NUJ media union has warned that a culture of overwork is seriously affecting its members’ health and threatening the future of quality journalism.

TUC research published for “Work Your Proper Hours Day” in February showed that media firms are benefiting from unpaid overtime worth £288 million a year, with media workers 50% more likely than the rest of the UK’s working population to work unpaid overtime.

“It’s easy for employers to say that long hours are the norm for media workers, but this culture is symptomatic of big business’s lack of respect for quality journalism,” said NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear. “Whilst it’s true that journalists have always put in extra effort when a story demands it, many bosses now demand people put in the extra hours, day after day, week after week. That has a knock-on effect on the quality of work journalists are able to produce.”