rss feedJournalism down: Group says 35,885 industry jobs shed since last September
The media alliance known as UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. announced Thursday that the news industry has lost 35,885 jobs since Lehman Brothers collapsed on Sept. 15, 2008.
Those cuts cover broadcast, newspaper and magazine positions and outpace the national job loss rate by three to one, the group said in its report.
From September 2008 to August, journalists experienced an average monthly job loss rate of 22 percent compared to the national one of 8 percent.
“The news industry has been hemorrhaging jobs long before the economic crisis began last year,” UNITY executive director Onica Makwakwa said in a statement.
“These numbers confirm that the economic downturn has hit the news industry very, very hard.”
From Jan. 1, 2008 through Tuesday, the journalism industry has cut 46,599 jobs, according to the UNITY findings. The group started tracking layoffs at the beginning of last year.
The 35,885 lost jobs cover the period from Sept. 15, 2008 to Tuesday.
During this period, the largest number of journalists who left companies occurred in December when 7,398 jobs ceased to exist.
May experienced the lowest number with 1,132 cut jobs.
The organization based its calculations on Securities and Exchange Commission filings and information from 1,101 print and broadcast companies.
UNITY counted layoffs, buyouts and attrition in its report. Jobs evaporated in newsrooms, as well as advertising, circulation and other departments.
So, presuming one person filled each job, what does 35,885 represent?
Considering there are 365 days in a year, that would break down to 98 people losing a journalism job each day.
Or, imagine walking on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle - and seeing no undergraduate student.
The UW, as it’s called, has an undergraduate population of roughly 29,400 students, according to U.S. News and World Report.
“As the news industry shapes a new future and companies battle the financial storm, it’s important to remember that it’s about people too,” Makwakwa said.
While journalism groups have voiced concern about job losses, scores of people have entered the new media world through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, smart phones and text messages.
The UNITY report notes that about 200 media outlets have closed since January 2008. Of that number, a large bulk has been weekly publications.
Some of the larger newspapers that stopped include the Rocky Mountain News, Tucson Citizen and Albuquerque Tribune.
UNITY is an umbrella organization for the Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer until the newspaper ended publication in March.
