Rick Edmonds from the Poynter Institute reports that last year, 2,400 journalism jobs were lost, a 4.4 percent decrease. This decrease is even bigger than the one in 2000. News like this may not bode well for freshly graduated journalism majors looking for jobs.
Every time I see articles like these, it really serves as a harsh reality for young journalists like myself. In classes and during guest lectures, journalism students are constantly reminded that newspapers are slowly dying out and that soon everything will be on the Internet. Nowadays it seems that no matter what new ways you use to make stories interesting, there’s always something more that could be done.
This kind of thing really makes me wonder sometimes whether or not there’s a job out there for me when I graduate, and if there is, what kind of job will it be? Every day it seems that newspapers are cutting down the size of their staffs. Edmonds’ article says the number of journalism jobs after the decrease is 52, 600. With all the papers across the nation, that doesn’t seem like a lot. Beats are being consolidated all the time, staffs are shrunk, and the list goes on.
I don’t doubt there will be jobs out there for students like me who will graduate in a few years, but I have to wonder what kind of opportunities will remain if newspaper circulation and the number of journalism jobs continue to decline.
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2 comments:
James - Scroll down on the blog and check out the video of Dianne Lynch, from Ithaca College. She is right: newspapers are in trouble, but journalism is not. I think your generation will find jobs but they may not be at print newspapers as we know them now. I think you'll see new ways of using the web and other delivery vehicles for news and information. Storytelling is still in high demand!
James:
You're right to be skeptical.
What people like Sue won't tell you is that current newsroom management is actively destroying newspapers and what they used to be. The people who are in positions to smash and grab are doing just that. Then they'll take golden parachutes out, and when the mess is left behind, they'll simply reminisce about the "good old days." They'll conveniently leave out the part where they did nothing to preserve or maintain what they inherited.
Don't listen to the fossils and the overmatched Baby Boomers. They're wrecking the industry; don't throw away your life trying to clean it up. Unless you plan to specialize in labor law and to take it to the outright violators of overtime rules, etc., the mountain of trash will be tough to scale.
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