night working ILLUSTRATION: HOWARD MCWILLIAM re team “I sometimes managed to sleep in the backseat of my car


during a lull in action during the day. Nights were busy as that’s when most of the trouble broke out with police and army firing plastic bullets and doing baton charges.” Brian McGleenon, now a financial journalist, worked


overnight for The Daily Express website from 2018 to 2019 and reflects on the fact that the night team were known as ‘vampires’ and were ‘second-class citizens’ compared to those who worked more social hours. “When I joined the day team, day people would say ‘Were


you a vampire?’ because the day team would comment on a headline: “The overnight team – that’s exactly what they’d do’. There was a bit of animosity between days and nights.”


Hits to health Night-shift workers face increased health risks especially if they work at night regularly which, according to the TUC, raises the risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression. Scientific research has also shown that night-shift workers are more likely to experience sleep problems, gastrointestinal issues, cancer, vitamin D deficiency and high blood sugar.


O’Carroll found working nights difficult not just because of the irregular hours which made sleep difficult but because of the horrific things he saw as a frontline reporter in Northern Ireland, including covering the 1998 Omagh bombing. “You ended up suffering from bad sleeping patterns. You’d


end up with insomnia. We tended to self-medicate – we’d go to the pub. We saw some horrific stuff. I was the first reporter at the scene of the Omagh bomb. I didn’t get back for a week. I did 17 of the funerals.” O’Carroll also admits that, on one occasion, he fell asleep


during a long night shift when he was covering a stand-off in Bellaghy, County Derry, in the mid-1990s before being woken by a publican and being given somewhere to sleep. Vicary points out that at the World Service, a previous NUJ


father of chapel had managed to negotiate an agreement with the BBC that when journalists reached 55, they were allowed to opt out of nights if they wished. However, despite there being substantial evidence that


night shifts are more challenging for older workers, several years ago the corporation ripped up this agreement,claiming that the opt-out was ‘discriminatory’ against younger employees. As a result, some World Service journalists have been using their annual leave to avoid having to work a fourth consecutive night shift. Although McGleenon describes himself as a ‘lightweight


when it comes to nights’, having worked only two nights a week for six months, he argues that night shifts are not healthy and the experience negatively affected his sleep. “You’re out of sync. People in your life want to have dinner


at a certain time and you’re lying in bed. I think people should not be allowed to do it for long periods of time. There was one guy on The Daily Star, I remember hearing, was on his fifth or sixth year of doing nights. “There would always be one night a week when I wouldn’t


get any sleep because my body was trying to recalibrate. I think nights should have paid more.”


Not a rite of passage Night shifts in journalism – particularly in broadcasting with the 24/7 social media-focused, globalised world we live in with constant breaking news – are unlikely to end completely any time soon. However, they should be used only when necessary to cover significant events where it is essential to have journalists on the ground or reporting to an international audience. Night shifts should not be used to boost online page viewing figures or be a rite of passage for inexperienced early-career journalists. I believe that the NUJ should take a stronger stance on


journalists working overnight and fully embrace the spirit of the arguments put forward last year by the World Service branch. Not only do night workers need the same facilities that those who work during the day but also they deserve extra money, particularly if they are doing nights full time. Chapels and NUJ organisers need to ask employers tough questions about nights. Why are you employing staff to work overnight when pre-written articles can be automatically uploaded overnight before the morning uptick in online traffic? Could your overnight radio or TV programme be produced with fewer staff or even recorded? I’m sure every union member who has struggled to stay awake at work as dawn breaks and the birds start singing would appreciate it.


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