Survivor: Newsroom Apocalypse Edition

Years ago, when I was a reporter in Bakersfield, Calif., my then-city editor Bob Christie told our staff we needed to prepare for "the Big One."

The Big One, for those unfamiliar, is the earthquake of all earthquakes, destined to hit California one day.

But the preparation wasn't about our personal safety or buying insurance (although those things were considered). It was about how our paper, The Bakersfield Californian, would report on the earthquake if and when it happened. It was a detailed plan of to-go bags and how to safely make it into work—if work was still standing.

I joked with my co-workers that we were prepping for the end times, aka CBS' Survivor, newsroom apocalypse edition.

Today, if you're lucky enough to still have a job in media, the threats aren't just natural disasters. The mudslides and tsunamis are coming from inside the house, as media organization after media organization falls to questionable ownership. The latest is the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, made official today, which has left dozens of media properties—from HBO to CNN to MTV, Comedy Central, and BET—in the hands of one man under the Skydance label.

Cobbled together with funds from the Ellison family, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and a host of other Middle Eastern countries, the $111 billion merger was controversial, but the billionaires own our government at the moment, so it was approved despite public protest and multiple lawsuits.

After what happened to MTV News' and BET's web archives, and CBS News under Paramount, people are understandably skeptical about how all these properties will fare under David Ellison's ownership, especially CNN. Will Ellison be more hands-off, or will he sic his MAGA-adjacent wrecking ball, Bari Weiss, on the network?

(People keep saying Weiss is on her last legs at CBS now that she's destroyed the news division's credibility and started meddling with flagship program 60 Minutes. Yet, as Tisha Campbell is wont to sing, she's "still here.")

So, in the spirit of everyone in media being in survival mode, I'm dusting off a piece I wrote a few months back with tips on how to survive a hostile newsroom.

Or, as I would call it...

What to Do When You Can't Quit Your Toxic Media Job

So you’re a journalist, and your newsroom has been taken over by lizard people. (Also known as “capitulating capitalists.”) They don’t care about readers. They don’t care about the truth. They definitely don’t care about “objectivity.” Sometimes they don’t even care about money, because watching Weiss make blunder after blunder to destroy any ratings or goodwill CBS News ever had shows that yesterday’s success story is today’s broken-down n' busted nightmare. 

As someone who has worked in one or half a dozen toxic places, I know how you feel. You just want to get the news out, not worry about the company’s stock price or whether they’ll fire entire divisions to appease advertisers or the government. But you’re a real one. You want to dig in your heels. You want to fight the powers that be.

So here are a few tips for surviving a hostile newsroom. 

1. Document everything. Write everything down. Keep immaculate notes on your job and what they are doing to you and your teams. This may help you or the union later if you become a target and need evidence to back up your claims. If you think they’re trying to push you out, chances are, they probably are. So arm yourself with information just in case.
2. Know your rights. This is where it doesn’t hurt to have a friend who’s a lawyer, especially someone who understands workers’ rights and freedom-of-information laws. Do your research, so you come from an informed place when it comes to your rights in your newsroom.
3. Be careful. Never go into a conversation with HR without knowing your rights beforehand and understanding the workplace rules, which rules are legally sound and unavoidable, and which ones are iffy at best. While HR, in theory, should be there for employees, they’re also there to make sure the company is legally compliant and doesn’t get sued. Depending on the company, your health and happiness might be a bit further down the priority list. 
4. Focus on the work, not the drama. You have a job to do. That job is journalism. Let nothing stop you from it. Try to keep your head down and focus only on the work. While drama is sometimes unavoidable, you can often sidestep it by prioritizing your job and your readers. They should always be the focus, no matter what madness surrounds you.
5. Teamwork makes the dream work. When you’re in a bad workplace, it can be very frustrating and lonely. But you’re not alone in that bad workplace. You’re there in a newsroom with fellow frustrated, demoralized journalists. Lean on each other. Be there for each other. Make real friends. In traumatic times, I found comfort and respect in people I didn’t even speak to before management went off the deep end. A bad workplace can at times break people apart, but more often than not, it brings workers together.

It's important to remember that in the larger scheme, this is but a turbulent blip in American journalism's history. We've survived everything from newspaper publishers fomenting wars to sell papers to the collapse of print media in the digital age. It's never been safe. It's never been not chaotic.

And the Black press, which turns 200 next year, is still here as well, struggling, underfunded, but surviving as we've always done. Whether it's an overemphasis on celebrity or not, that's not going anywhere. It will keep morphing and changing with the times.

When things are bad in media, they're often nightmarishly so, but because things are so volatile, they could change just as quickly. Just a few years ago, digital media was flush with corporate investment and venture capital cash, and people were throwing ones around like they were T-Pain in a strip club. Then Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election, and everything went to shit almost immediately.

With the midterms upon us, anything could happen. Maybe the Democrats will take both Houses of Congress. Maybe they won't. Maybe WWIII will go from a simmer to a boil. Maybe the AI bubble will burst and crash the economy. Maybe having a crappy journalism job will be the least of your problems.

Maybe you won't have a job at all.

Only time will tell. But I know one thing—people will continue to report and writers will continue to write, and both will do their best to break through the noise and confusion to get the news out. So tip your journalists. Hit those like buttons and subscribe. Share what you read, and keep supporting independent media.

Because whether the apocalypse is an earthquake or the complete collapse of our Democracy, we'll still be here.