Putting Numbers to Life After Newspapers
The American Journalism Review takes a look at Paper Cuts‘ Erica Smith who estimates that more than 7,000 journalists have lost their job this year.
And that means the newsroom population of American papers shrank by about 15 percent last year, down from 52,000 at the start of the year. That’s three times larger than the single greatest annual newsroom employment decrease since 1978, when the American Society of Newspaper Editors began making estimates of the editorial workforce.
The AJR wanted to know what happened to all these journalists so they conducted an unscientific poll to which 595 people responded.
According to the results while just under 36% found jobs again in under three months only six percent were able to fine jobs in journalism. However! “While the overwhelming majority — 85 percent — say they miss working at a paper, they are often happier in their new jobs. Sixty-two percent tell us they had been satisfied in their old newspaper jobs; 78 percent report being satisfied in their new jobs.” For a full breakdown of results go here.
