The difficulty of assessing the journalism job market
In the Economics Unbound blog last week, Michael Mandel attempted to chart the job numbers for the journalism industry over the last two decades, finding a consistent decline in newspaper jobs and cyclical ups and downs across most other mediums, with a slight downturn in these mediums over the last few years.
The problem is that the internet has created a whole new ambiguous ecosystem of both journalism and quasi-journalism jobs, ones that are producing real (and sometimes massive) revenue but are difficult to pin to the news industry. You have the patent lawyer who has a popular law blog which in turn indirectly brings in large clients. You have your assortment of independent pro bloggers that make enough money through online advertising. You have your health care bloggers who have turned their online celebrity into consulting contracts for the industry. Also there are the part time incomes and the kickbacks gifts that tech and mommy bloggers receive regularly from brands looking for free pimpage.
