ABSTRACT

Stress has always been an underlying job condition of newspaper journalism. New to the workload and the expectations of a full-time journalism job created unfamiliar stress on novice journalists, leading to burnout. In the mid-1970 when University of California-Berkeley social psychologists Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson first scientifically explored the notion of burnout, it was classified as 'pop psychology'. The premise of burnout derives from the early 20th century when 'to burn oneself out' was English slang meaning 'to work too hard and die early'. The term was popularized by Graham Greene's 1960 best-selling novel A Burnt-Out Case. In the novel, an African named Deo Gratias had lost his fingers and toes to leprosy. Using up and burning out veteran journalists committed to the profession, and provide guidance to the young people entering it, did not bode well for newspapers, communities, or the culture of journalism. Burnout would continue to inflict newspaper journalists, possibly creating a new Newsroom Exodus.