Published: July 07, 1997
Last Updated: October 08, 1997
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At the beginning of this century, most newspaper employees were hard-working, underpaid, grumbling journeymen who shared little sense of social purpose or professionalism - but seemed to love their work nonetheless. Now that this century of remarkable change is drawing to a close, newspaper employees are still hard-working, they are still underpaid, they are still known to grumble on occasion - and they still love their work. But there have been changes - abundant, profound and unpredictable changes. And the changes are occurring at an ever-quickening pace. What is the newspaper journalist really like at the end of the 20th century? In 1988 the ASNE Human Resources Committee took a snapshot of the newsroom and discovered a great deal about the expectations, aspirations, satisfactions and dissatisfactions of the newspaper journalists of the 1980s. The result was ''The Changing Face of the Newsroom,'' which was published by ASNE in 1989. But those were The Eighties (the phrase has already acquired nostalgic overtones). In view of that ever-quickening pace of change, the Human Resources Committee launched another study in 1996 - partly to see how the snapshot had changed in just eight years, and partly to discover journalists' feelings about issues that were new or had not been explored in the earlier survey. Here are some of the findings: The workforce is aging. Now, 44 percent of the journalists are 40 or over. In the last eight years, the percentage of the workforce in the 41-50 age bracket has grown from 15 to 32, giving the maturing baby boomers growing influence in the newsroom. There are fewer young people. The percentage of journalists 30 and under has declined from 29 to 20. The under-30 age group is by far the most diverse, with 50 percent female and 15 percent minorities. In contrast, the over-50 age group is 78 percent male and 99 percent white. The percentage of minorities in the 1996 sample (11 percent) is greater than in the 1988 sample (7 percent). This agrees with the results of ASNE's annual employment census. However, daily newspapers remain far short of matching minorities' 26 percent share of the national population. The number of women has hardly changed in the last eight years, even though they constitute half of the younger journalists. Overall, women made up 35 percent of the survey sample in 1988 and 37 percent last year. Journalists are increasingly college-educated. The percentage with degrees rose from 86 to 89 in the last eight years; in a 1971 survey, 58 percent had degrees. Those with journalism degrees are now a majority, at 54 percent. The newspaper internship is becoming a standard feature of journalists' college education. More journalists are planning to get out of the business before retirement age. In particular, minorities and women predict they will leave early. The most-often-cited reason for leaving journalism is still money, especially at smaller papers. But ''working conditions'' and ''stress'' now run a close second and third. The percentages of journalists rating their paper as ''excellent,'' and saying their paper is improving, have shrunk dramatically. A majority of journalists think that in 10 years newspapers will be ''a less important part of American life.''  More than half of the sample say their newsroom budget has declined in the last five years, and 71 percent say their current newsroom budget is inadequate. The most-popular workplace improvement is to expand the staff; eight years ago, it was to improve management/staff communication. Most journalists say their papers are ''fair'' to ''poor'' at covering minorities, young people and gays. By comparison, traditional subject areas - politics and government, sports, crime, education, entertainment, and business and economics - receive positive ratings. Journalists generally give high marks to their paper's commitment to diversity. Overall, majorities approve their paper's performance on ethnic diversity, gender diversity, and fairness on sexual-orientation workplace issues. And there is no validation of a white-male backlash. However, a majority of each minority group agree that their paper's commitment to ethnic diversity is inadequate. Journalists say the best strengths of their immediate supervisors are intelligence and journalism skills. They say supervisors are weakest in leadership and in ''encouraging people and giving helpful feedback.'' A majority would like more one-on-one discussions about work. Repetitive stress injury (RSI) afflicts 28 percent of the workforce. RSI is especially prevalent at larger newspapers and among copy editors. The unhappiest campers in the newsroom are still the copy editors. Editorial writers, by comparison, seem sublimely contented. Less than one-third of newspaper journalists use the Internet regularly, and less than one-third see a promising future for newspapers on the Internet.  A majority of journalists approve of ''civic journalism'' community-outreach techniques. Yet, the journalists say they individually are becoming less involved in their communities. There is also abundant evidence that today's newspaper employees are still not only hard-working but dedicated to the highest ideals of journalism. Perhaps it is this persistent devotion that has created some of the frustration that is given voice in this report. The industry faces new challenges: some technological, some economic and some demographic. But a workforce that is still as dedicated to its ideals as this one offers the industry a resource for meeting the challenges. What follows is a detailed examination of this new snapshot. It concludes with recommendations of ways in which editors can respond to problems and create an environment for success, in the new century. | Back to Top | Table of Contents |