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Abstract
The period 2009–2010 was characterised as an industry-transforming period of economic and professional “crisis” for news journalism, involving significant journalism job losses in most developed nations. However, at the same time that media employers were laying off journalists in unprecedented numbers, they were still hiring a small amount of new recruits to work as journalists. These job advertisements therefore provide a rich source of information about how employers defined “journalism” during a period of transformation. Focusing on jobs advertised by Australian media companies, this article shows that journalism was not a high priority as they sought to restructure. Employers advertised four times as many jobs for advertising, sales and marketing staff as they did for journalists. When they did seek to hire journalists, employers retained conservative views about the nature of journalism as a trade rather than a profession. They were focused upon centralised, low-pay positions where candidates’ malleability, experience and personal attributes were more important than formal qualifications. Employers’ advertisements also suggested they were ill-equipped to cope with the digital transition and viewed it as something that was occurring outside the domain of many journalism jobs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our sincere thanks to Dr Stephanie Brookes and Katherine Farhall for their research assistance in collecting job advertisements.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 A pilot study conducted in 2009 found manual searches within 30 days or less were more efficient for gathering data than relying on automated email alerts as job advertisements were retained online for 30 days after the expiry date. To capture the widest pool of journalism and media company job advertisements, manual searches were performed every 30 days or less for 365 days from 2 November 2009 to the 22 November 2010 (20 days were excluded during the Christmas and New Year period in 2009 and early 2010).
2 The difference in our finding compared to that of advocates of journalism's long-tail theory could lie in the fact that we studied advertised roles as opposed to positions already filled—which is what the Margaret Gee data showed. Furthermore, the definitions of journalist might not align between the two studies and caution is needed here in the definition of “big media”. For example, we categorise entities that might have fewer than 10 journalists on staff as “big media” outlets if they belonged to a major media network such as rural newspapers owned by APN.
3 Indeed, they found employers ranked personal qualities as more important than trade skills whereas job advertisements in 2009–2010 did have a focus on trade skills. This can be explained by Austin and Cokley’s focus on asking employers, more specifically, about graduate recruitment.
4 While racial discrimination in the news industry is unlikely to be as overt as an openly stated racial preference in a job advertisement, non-discrimination laws mean that no employer will ever specify racial or ethnic background. Our methodology is therefore unable to add evidence on this important matter although many studies identify such discrimination as an issue in Australian, British and American newsrooms.
