Newsroom Jobs Shrunk By 5,200 in 2009

At its annual conference this week, the American Society of News Editors released yet another depressing job market report, noting some 5.200 newsroom jobs were lost in 2009, bringing the total since 2007 to 13,500.

“American daily newspapers lost fewer staffers in 2009 than in 2008 when nearly 6,000 journalists left newsrooms across the country due to buyouts or layoffs,” the report added. “The overall newsroom workforce declined by about 11 percent from 46,700 to 41, 500. Among minorities, the workforce declined 12.6 percent from 6300 to 5,500.”

It also stated: “The percentage of minorities in newsrooms totaled 13.26 percent, a decline of .15 percentage points from a year ago.” ASNE has conducted a census of newsrooms since 1978 primarily as a means of measuring minority employment, organizers said.

Other findings are below:

Supervisors: Minorities account for 11 percent of all supervisors in newsrooms, which remains virtually unchanged for the past three years. Of all minorities, 21 percent are supervisors.

Newspapers with no minorities: 465 newspapers responding to the ASNE census had no minorities on their full-time staff. This number has been growing since 2006. All newspapers but one with circulations of 50,000 or more that responded to the census had at least one minority staffer.

Where do minorities work: Nearly two-thirds of minorities work at newspapers with circulations exceeding 100,000. The percentage of minorities working at newspapers with more than 500,000 circulation is 18 percent, 250,001 to 500,000 circulation, 19 percent; 100,001 to 250,000 circulation now account for 29 percent.