The headline that came across my Twitter feed today quickly drew my attention:
Wait, what?
I have been saying the same thing for several years now, but always get strange looks. Now, here was a post from my old friend Mark Briggs saying that, yes, there are jobs out there. But, Briggs quickly points out the caveat: The new jobs in journalism aren’t the same as the old jobs.
Briggs bolsters what many of us knew anecdotally with some statistics:
- Drawing from numbers based on the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of roughly 60,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, Mandel found the overall number of employed journalists increased by 19% from 2007-2010.
I’ve posted many jobs in this space, but Briggs stresses how the job descriptions have been changing (and will continue to change.)
Briggs writes:
Indeed, here’s a piece of a job posting from July 30, 2010 on the Tribune website:
The TV revolution is upon us – and the new Tribune Company is leading the resistance. We’re recruiting a solid team of anti-establishment producer/editors, “preditors”, to collaborate on a groundbreaking morning news/infotainment format unlike anything ever attempted on local TV. Don’t sell us on your solid newsroom experience. We don’t care. Or your exclusive, breaking news coverage. We’ll pass. Or your excellence at writing readable copy for plastic anchorpeople. Not interested.
Sell us on this:
-Your personal relationship with the internet, blogs, video-sharing, iPads, Droids, Blackberries, Blueteeth, Facebook & Twitter, and all things Modern Culture.
-You’re in sync with the pulse of the streets, not the PC, Capital “J” journalism world.
I love that last sentence.
Bottom line, there are jobs. A friend just sent let me know about his job opening at the CTMirror.org. I also came across these openings on IRE’s jobs site.
So, keep plugging away, there are jobs out there!
UMass Journalism Professor's Blog 