What the editor wants

An international overview of the

‘journalism’ job market

Martin HirstAUT

December 2010

journalism.co.uk 21 September 2010

A presentation of recent, but brief, research into the job market for journalists in USA, Canada, UK, NZ & Australia – Sept/Oct 2010

What the editors want

What types of jobs are out there?

Who’s hiring?

Who are they hiring?

Job description duties, type of organization, platform,

Required & desirable skill-set writing, reporting, editorial, web-related, video, audio,

Person statement attributes, qualities of applicants

PURPOSE OF STUDY

© Andrey Tsidvintsev | Dreamstime.com

Global data*PLATFORM + # OF

JOBS

 FREQ

MAGAZINES (INCL. TRADE & B2B PUBS) 65

NEWSPAPERS 57

TV 36

ONLINE 23CONTENT FARM (DEMAND MEDIA, SUITE 101, COMCAST) 12

RADIO 8OTHER (PR, WIRES, LISTING AGENCIES, CORPORATE, MEDIA MONITORS) 56

  257

COUNTRIES + # OF JOBS

# OF ADS

USA 42

CANADA 65

NEW ZEALAND 42

UK 63

AUSTRALIA 45

257

* SEE APPENDIX-SLIDES FOR COUNTRY-BY-COUNTRY ANALYSIS

News-paper

Magazine Online TV Content Farm

Radio Other 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Newspaper

Magazine

Online

TV

Content Farm

Radio

Other

Media platform of advertised jobs (All countries)

Jobs (%)

INTEREST-ING COM-PARISON

[LIMITED] DATA SUGGESTS PRINT IS STILL THE DOMINANT JOBS PLATFORM (NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES, INCLUDING TRADE + B2B)

PR, WIRES, PRIVATE FIRMS, CONTENT MAKERS, MEDIA MONITORS, FREELANCERS AND NGOS

Newspaper

Magazine

Online TV

Content Farm

Radio

Other

Media platform of advertised jobs (All countries)

Newspaper

Magazine

Online

TV

Content Farm

Radio

Other

Newspaper

Magazine

Online TV

Content Farm

Radio

Other

Media platform of jobs advertised in NZ (%)

Newspaper

Magazine

Online

TV

Content Farm

Radio

Other

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Print-oriented jobs by country

USA

CANADA

NEW ZEALAN

D

UK

AUSTRALIA

Preliminary analysis shows strong resilience in print-oriented jobs.

This chart includes ‘newspaper’ and ‘magazine’ jobs. It does not include any print jobs in the ‘other’ category.

Print still strong?

NEWSPAPERS USA – newspaper job

ads still 47.6% of total jobs

New Zealand – newspaper jobs 28.6%

Australia – newspapers 22.2%

Canada – 13.9%

UK – newspapers 9.5%

MAGAZINES UK – magazine jobs

41.3% of total ads [46% B2B titles]

Australia – magazines 33.3% [60% B2B titles]

New Zealand – magazines 23.8% [20% B2B titles]

Canada – magazine 18.6% [44% B2B titles]

USA – magazines 4.8%

American newspapersNewspapers, contrary to what is frequently alleged, are not dying in droves.

Only half a dozen of any size went out of business, and most of those were second papers in their market.

More papers, nearly 100, cut back at least one day a week, but most of those were very small.

Pew Center State of the media 2010

http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/newspapers_summary_essay.php

newsrooms have shrunk by 25% in three years, and just under 27% since the beginning of the decade

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Percentage of broadcast jobs by country(TV + radio)

USA

CA

NA

DA

NZ

UK AU

STR

ALI A

Canada is the real outlier here.One conjecture on this is the vast scale of the country and the need to reach/cover remote places.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/09/the_journalism.html

What we have is a wipeout in newspapers, plus what looks like a combination of secular and cyclical declines in other “journalistic” industries.

Important caveats: We are working with blunt tools here.

Mike Mandel, September 2010

What the editors want #2

Help wanted:work skills and attributes in

journalism job advertisements

General Reporterexcellent communication

skills

strong organizational skills

knowledge of the basic fundamentals and ethics of news writing and editing

able to produce clear, concise copy

undergraduate or graduate degree in journalism or English

o Full-time, general assignment reporter needed immediately for weekly newspaper near San Antonio.

o Bring your enterprise and your energy to this highly competitive situation.

o Photo skills a plus.

assume that everyone's got basic reporting, text writing and copy editing, so those aren't listed as options

(Niles 2010)

News

Judg

emen

t

Broad

cast

Photo

grap

hy

Videog

raph

yAud

io

Sub-E

diting

Web

Skil

lsCM

S

Social

Med

ia

Repor

ting

Editor

ial

Law /

Ethics

Compu

ter L

itera

cy

Mult

imed

ia

Writ

ing

Web

Sav

vy0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Skills required for advertised jobs (All countries - by media platform)

Newspaper Magazine Online TV Content Farm Radio Other

Skill

Job

s (%

)

Key skills

Writing highly regarded across all platforms, except radio Newspapers, magazines, TV, online and ‘other’ required

writing in over 60% of ads

Editorial & reporting skills 2nd rank

News judgment 3rd rank

Newspapers

Radio Television Magazine Online

1ST Writing Editorial Broadcasting Writing Writing

2ND

Reporting News Judgment

Reporting Editorial Editorial

3RD Editorial Broadcasting

Writing Reporting Web skills

4TH Photography Web Skills Editorial Sub-editing Social Media

5TH News Judgment & Sub-editing

Reporting News Judgment

Photography News Judgment & Computer Literacy

ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE

INITIATIVE

QUALIFICATION

TIME MANAGEMENT

TEAMWORK

COMMUNICATION

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

LEADERSHIP

Key AttributesWe hired one individual who immediately began to give one of our veteran staff members a lecture about how he should be doing his job. GOODBYE!

Stan Stamper, publisherHugo Daily News, Oklahoma

Key attributes in journalism job ads ranked across all countries in the study

Where are the jobs going to be?

In terms of jobs, journalistic occupations are outperforming the overall economy.

However, many of the journalistic jobs are not being created in conventional journalism industries.

MIKE MANDEL – THE EVOLUTION OF THE JOURNALISM JOB MARKET

http://innovationandgrowth.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/the-evolution-of-the-journalism-job-market/

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

Online jobs per countryA relatively small number of jobs are identified as specifically ‘online’.Across all platforms, other job descriptions and identified duties can also include some form of ‘online’ component

USA CANADA NZUK AUSTRALIA

New

spap

er

Mag

azin

e

Onl

ine

TV

Con

tent

Far

m

Rad

io

Oth

er

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Jobs with online components(By media platform)

Media Platform

Jo

bs

(%

)

CONVERGENCE EMBODIED

o‘traditional news reporter role’o‘twice weekly publication and in-house radio station’o‘package information across a spectrum of mediumso‘meeting & event coverage’o‘assembling & producing daily newscasts and email blasts’o‘features & special section writing’

Top-notch multimedia

editor

strong working knowledge of Final Cut Pro and Photoshop

HTML, CSS, Javascript and basic PHP understanding

WordPress usage and Flash experience preferred

a superb journalist who has technical acumen and keen creativity

The Desert Sun and its award-winning Web site, mydesert.com, have an immediate opening for a digital content editor specializing in multimedia and social media content.

Digital News EditorThe individual hired o will have experience editing video on iMovie or

Final Cut Express,

o be familiar with Garage Band or a similar audio editing software, and

o be proficient making maps on Google maps

o experience promoting a newspaper or business on social networks is a plus.

So ten years into the Internet revolution, you are beginning a career in journalism.

Odds are that means you are looking for a job in either print or TV.

What's wrong with this picture?

Anthony Moor, Online Journalism Reviewhttp://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060316moor/

Moor’s advice in 2006 seems a little off the mark in 2010

Online has not overtaken print as the major employment platform

However… Web skills, including

multimedia and social media are becoming increasingly important across all hiring decisions

Journalism as small businessJournalism students need to be taught or encouraged to do entrepreneurship to make sure they take off in the new climate – rather than fall flat on their face because their traditional skill-set no longer stands up to what is required.

(Hannah Waldram, 2009)

I graduated from Cardiff School of Journalism in 2009, have worked as a freelance dance critic, social reporter for Podnosh and online editor of WestMidlandsDance.com for Meshed Media. I have blogged for Media Wales and the Birmingham Post and I am founder of the hyperlocal website BournvilleVillage.com. My particular interests are the arts, social media and technology.

Some [LIMITED] conclusionsNewspapers and magazines [INCL. TRADE & B2B] continue to

provide just over half journalism jobs

Journalism skills are well regarded in ‘other’ [RELATED JOBS]

The number of online-only positions is still relatively small, but growing [WEB, CMS, COPY-FLOW, BLOGGING OR SOCIAL MEDIA SKILLS]

Content farms and hyper-local sites are emerging new employers [DEMAND MEDIA, SUITE 101, COMCAST & PATCH.COM = LOW-PAY FREELANCERS]

Writing, editorial & news judgment continue to dominate required skills [IN TOP 3 ACROSS MOST PLATFORMS]

Nearly all journalism jobs now have at least some digital requirements [OVER 50% IN NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE RADIO & OTHER]

Initiative and time management are the top personal attributes desired by editors [A QUALIFICATION STILL COUNTS]

ONE LAST THING…

Pre-employment drug screening is required for all employees

Was going to hire one person this week until I looked up his FaceBook page. His profile photo was drinking beer out of a huge silver trophy. Cost him a job.