An unpleasant question: Do we have an excess of daily press journalists? And, if so, how does the surfeit vary from country to country?
Two years ago, Earl Wilkinson, the managing director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA), produced a chart showing how the growth in the number of journalists employed by US dailies had not prevented a decrease in circulation:
A former journalist himself, Earl is a strong advocate of editorial differentiation; therefore, he is not against large newsrooms. But the fact remains: on the US market, the size of the newsroom isn’t a shield against readership erosion. With the possible exception of India, the era of big editorial cathedrals is gone. In France for instance, according to a 2009 study conducted by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the number of journalists almost tripled in two generations, about 50 years. For the same time period, the number of copies sold per 1000 inhabitants shrunk by 66%, from 360 about 120 per 1000 people.
I took the OECD report titled The Evolution of News and the Internet and fed it to Excel. The output shows the following trends:
#1: editorial workforce. If adding journalists has proven unable to reverse the trend in reader depletion, in any given market, the more numerous the journalists are, the better the newspaper industry holds. The chart below covers seven countries, with two superimposed data sets. First, in blue, the number of journalists per 100,000 daily copies sold; second, in red, paid circulation per 1000 inhabitants.
Sweden and Norway show the most favorable ratios: strongest readership and the biggest editorial staff per copies sold. Italy shows the worst numbers: relatively few journalists for the lowest readership.
One notable exception: with only 41 journalists per 100,000 copies sold, Japan enjoys the highest newspaper penetration with more than 402 copies sold each day per 1000 inhabitants. The reason is Japan has five of the world’s top 10 paid dailies; among them, the Yomiuri Shimbun has a daily circulation of 10m copies, and the Asahi Shimbun 8m. While Japan has 13 times less titles that the United States, its population is only 2.4 times smaller. As for the US, it has 112 journalists per 100,000 copies sold and a penetration of 159 copies per 1000 inhabitants. But those numbers are degrading fast due to a higher reliance on disappearing advertising revenue.
#2: Productivity depends on market density and concentration.
To produce a million copies per day, it takes
… 414 journalists in Japan, a record high dense market in which the average daily sells almost 500,000 copies
… but 1600 in Sweden and Finland where a daily sells typically 40,000 copies
…and 1122 in the US where, on average, a daily sells 34,000 copies
Trend #3: Profitability. In Europe, there are basically two groups:
- Those who have been able to maintain a decent profitability through workforce adjustments. This group includes Finland, Germany, Norway – a country in which companies can be quite decisive when it’s time to restore profitability.
- The others, who have made no adjustments and whose profitability lags (only Sweden suffers from both downsizing and weak profitability).
The chart below shows profitability and its main components.
Trend #4: Subsidies. The OECD data show too many subsidies lead to low operating profit, no workforce adjustments and decreasing readership.
Italy and France are the perfect examples. Compared to Sweden, Italy has 4 times less readers par 1000 people but 12 times more subsidies per reader.
For France, the numbers are slightly better: 3 times less readers than Sweden and 5 times more direct subsidies (according to a conservative estimates, 10% of the revenue of the French dailies comes from public funding). The latest OECD data shows that neither France nor Italy have undertaken any sensible downsizing.
In fact, in Europe, the soundest newspaper economy is the British one: no direct subsidies, only a VAT at zero (like in Finland and Norway).
— frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com
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21 Comments
This is a very perceptive and useful analysis. I’m eager to think more about the implications before commenting in specific.
But I have this general question: have you considered whether you have cause and effect reversed in your analysis? For instance, might the relative success and failure of the papers be the result of other, external conditions (independent of staffing or circulation) and thus your initial dataset is pre-selected for the result you then extrapolate?
Cause and correlation are often confused, and I suspect to some degree that is true here. External variables are absent form the selection criteria or the analysis, and surely have some significant effect.
A historical change in job functions at newspapers has often been overlooked and likely affects the numbers.
The time period in the top graph, 1978 to 2006, encompasses a massive change in prepress production. The profession of pasteup artist or compositor essentially disappeared.
Despite what vendors or companies say, machines and software did not make all that work go away. A partial transfer of work to newsrooms occurred and likely inflates those “journalist” numbers even today.
The chart would present a clearer picture of the industry and efficiencies gained if prepress jobs were counted in the numbers.
A brief history, a bit skewed toward Adobe: http://www.prepressure.com/library/prepress-history
thanks for ur information
more journalist mean more news, but sadly there will be a probability that they write same news..
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I believe that you are missing a couple pieces of the puzzle. You really can’t talk about newspaper circulation without discussing marketing and promotion. It has been my experience that circulation promotions such as upsells, heavy discounts and sponsored copies are much more effective at moving readership than changes to editorial content. And, you can’t really talk about profitability without discussing advertising. It doesn’t matter how many journalists a newspaper has, during a recession, advertising dollars and profitability shrink.
There is an involontary experiment being done in Montreal on how many journalist are needed in a daily: Not too many.
The Journal de Montreal lock-out its journalist last year. The paper remains the same, save for the blood pictures on page one. With a limited staff of editors ( Québec has a tough anti scab law, so only management can replace workers) the paper is published with the same page count, same ads sales.
Fact is that most metro daily have too many staffers and small town one too few. Slowly killing both…
Comic Sans? Really?
Too many journalists? No! The GME (Google Market Economy) doesn’t provide enough good, paying outlets for ‘em, that’s all.
There ARE too many lawyers, though…. A journalist can’t throw a metaphorical rock in DC without hitting a lawyer. More rock-lobbing gumshoe journalists; fewer “distinguished attorneys.”
I’d argue that there are too few journalists. But perhaps my definition of journalist and yours are different. You seem to place the moniker on anyone employed to write for a newspaper, I place it on those who uphold journalistic standard in pursuit of facts and report it absent their own or their employer’s personal biases. If you use my definition there are few if any journalists left at all.
Interesting theory, outdated stats. The game has changed. since 2007/2008. I was part of an up-sizing newsroom from 2002 to 2007. We are also growing or flat in circulation from 2002 to 2005 or 2006. Then the downturn came, and so did newsroom layoffs. The more journalists laid off, the worse the coverage, especially local. The less local coverage, the more circulation dropped. This may not hold true for the NYT WaPo, etc., but it sure does for the majority of papers.
One other thing. There is a glut of alleged journalists — pseudo-journalists cluttering the web, low-rent magazines and cable TV shows with under-reported stories and political and social agendas that, because of the popularity of social networking platforms, get picked up in the legit media. Journalism leaders have a civic duty to get themselves under control and find a way to differentiate real news from infotainment.
One of the very few industries where competition does not have a positive effect on quality.
I believe another is the legal profession.
There are definitely too many lawyers. I guess journalists are cut from the same crop of parasites, growing in the same nutrient rich effluent.
Interesting theory, outdated stats..
Thanks for sharing…
Umm.. nice idea…
thanks for sharing
thanks for ur information
to many journalis, made all the same news, but they often make the wron news to interest people
It takes an uneducated man to see through journalistic loops, just as a lion would do the same. Naturally, both are well trained at voice indictiveness. The real problem with hundreds of journolists is individual perception, as to what would tickle the innards of a fool, or actually placate genuine intelligence as to public inquiry.
No doubt about it, the art of genuine journalism is to inform on state issues, not gossip for fools, of whom are tied to minor issues based upon comic meditation.
True, the reading public, generally harbors to the herd instinct, and must be fed with something palatable and reassured that their trough will be refilled on each day.
Absolutely, our nation depends as a whole,
on journalism that rolls truth forward that will give pertinent facts as a safety net in keeping our Republic at odds with alien influence that too, have printing presses on hand!
Hogorina
JOURNALISTS ARE COMPELLED TO EAT CROW WITH SUBSCRIBERS
THE TERROR OF DISREGARDING FREE SPEECH IS SELF-IMPLANTED TREASON !
America is now being driven into a well planned global depression, not a period of specific recessions. Office appointed political whores, collectively, kneel down to a , or clan of international banksters with combined cultures, and of ethnic ancestry. This mysterious empire is not at all absolutely interested in monetary gain. Their chief operation is to move into select capitalistic nations, of global influence, in spreading the gospel of pseudo-socialism, and all isms that various people latch onto in order to maintain a preconceived idea of existing from the womb too the tomb. As this method has been used to destabilize all Third Word countries, as steping stones into the heart and souls of any Republic not previously sanctioned as an instrument of their web. AMERICA IS TO BE REGIMENTATED WITH THE LOSS OF FREE SPEECH ! Thus the First Amendment to the Constitution must be voided.
With out a doubt, our Republican/Democratic political machine must become divided, splintered and totally plundered, as though an unseen hand of a supposed Luciferian influence has full control. As before stated, materialistic greediness is only a means to an end. To openly, steal, rob and plunder a nation, ( AMERICA ), is simply to imply that treason is being committed in the highest
eschelons of national government. Our Republic has been transformed into a national (METROPOLITAN SEWER ). Aiding in this inward destruction is the massive flood of well-trained revolutionaries, as post neo Marxists with the cry of proletarians of the world unite. Marxism is the bible of mobocracy in our country, whether it is of ignorance or subtly instilled, via a national commie machine of liberalized journalistic prostitution. The revamping of public opinion is press orientated far beyond comprehension.
Yes, indeed, every spiel of isms that lead to the path of national socialism are fed to innocent citizens of impaired vision, that usually end up with mob intellect. And for all others of whom are aware as to the changing tide of thought in difficult times, are being freely fleeced of their substance by planting the ever flippant line of thought in difficult times, by planned inflation. Most are innocently seduced via misinformed governmental financial disclosure, are led astray being duped and ignorantly misled, rail roaded into every concept of approaching socialism, by a some what national controlled media. PRESENTLY, AMERICA IS POLITICALLY DOOMED, SOCIALLY WAY LAID AND MENTALLY HIJACKED.
The Southern United States is under Marxists reconstruction — no question about the Northern hemisphere. The simple-minded are loaded down with commie inspired news concealing liberalism’s path through the Bible belt of the United States. Working people are hammered down with every day insignificant trifles of news-hounding. Most of all, no child or women are safe on the streets. Police protection, as allied with SWAT and FEMA are more prone to protect commercial interests alone. All school children need more protection, and proper education to sustain them through life. Socialism is not the answer. Hard work and self-esteem is the very roots of individual freedom.
Still, in front of all this one must take a rear view as to how an international financial empire is slowly gaining momentum through all channels of state and federal government. The absolute control of Hollywood has long ago been established. The very ultimate of a future One Word global government is not to control through money, but through public education in all walks of life. Basically, a state of national NIHILISM has leveled people in all walks of life, as programmed mobs being electronically lobotomized through television. Any and all mental cripples, Democratic or Republican, of whom have taken part in the reorganization of our Republic, in social engineering, while catering to alien philosophies arising out of the eastern hemisphere should be charged with high treason!
Hogorina
JOURNALISTS, BIBLE THUMPERS, SCHOLARS, ALL SUFFER ALIKE
This is not an abstract statement–speaking honestly is to be murdered !
GLANDULAR MURDER
STRANGER THAN FICTION, WE OPEN UP ( ANSWERS.COM ), TO DISCOVER MANY INTERPRETATIONS OF THE WORD GRAVITATION. . NOT TOO SURPRISINGLY, ONE DOES NOT DISCOVER A TERM AS PERSONALITY SUPPRESSION COMPLEX SYNDROME AND THE PERSONALITY SUPPRESSION GRAVITATIONAL COMPLEX SYNDROME.. NOT ONCE WAS THE WORD PHRASE ( GLANDULAR MURDER ) MENTIONED. WHY? ONLY A ONE PHRASE SLIP IN THE ANNALS OF DR. SIGMUND FRAUD’S WORKS, IN ONE UNIVERSITY, DOES THIS PHRASE STAND OUT. IT IS A MATTER OF OPINION THAT GLANDULAR MURDER WAS ACCIDENTALLY INTRODUCED INTO ONE OF THE LATE WORKS OF THIS MASTER OF PSYCHIC INSIGHT. ONE MIGHT COIN THIS AS A PRINTER’S SLIP, OF AN UNINTENDED MIND PROCESS. AT TIMES EVEN WIT COMES FORTH REVEALING A MIND SET IMBUED WITH HARBORED-UP REPRESSIONS. OR MAYBE, THE PRINTER TIRED OF BEING A MERE PAWN WITHIN CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, FEARED GLANDULAR MURDER.
DISCONTENTS! ABSOLUTELY! GLANDULAR MURDER IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IMPLIES. IN ESSENCE, COLD-BLOODED PRECALCULATED MURDER BY WAY OF BRINGING ILLNESS UPON ANY VICTIM THAT GOES ASTRAY FROM SET BOUNDRIES, OF HIGHER EDUCATION, THAT DWELVES INTO THE ANCIENT MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, THAT REACHES THOUSANDS OF YEARS BACK INTO SOULS OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LIFE. BASICALLY, OUR MODERN MEDICAL INDUSTRY DOES NOT COMPREHEND THIS, NOR CARE TO EXPLORE, FOR THEY ARE TRYING TO MAINTAIN THE GOOD LIFE, FROM THE WOMB TO THE TOMB. TO BE CASHIERED BY THE MASS MEDIA AND ITS SUBTLE-MINDED GOPHERS OF INTELLECTUAL WHOREDOM THROUGH MIND BENDING, WITHOUT A LET UP, BODY CHEMISTRY COMES INTO PLAY. GLANDULAR MURDER IS NOTHING MORE THAN SEVERAL GLANDS OVER REACTING TO AN INDIVIDUAL’S PERSONAL INHIBITIONS AS A RESULT OF PUBLIC AND MEDIA BASHING. INDIVIDUALS CAUGHT IN THIS MYSTERIOUS NET WILL LAY DOWN AND APOLIGISE, OR LITERALLY DIE, NO ONE IN THE NATIONAL MEDICAL INDUSTRY WILL COMPREHEND GLANDULAR MURDER. ACTUALLY, THIS IS A MASTER SECRET AND MYSTERY AND WEAPON OF A RELIGIOUS ORDER, THAT BASES ITS PRIME EXISTENCE IN USING MASOCHISM, AS A DRIVING FORCE IN KEEPING INTELLECTUAL BASTARDNESS IN LINE WITH THOUGHT CONTROL
CLEARLY, WHEN INDIVIDUALS, ESPECIALLY MOBS, ORGANIZATIONS, FRATERNITIES, ETC; HAVE BECOME TOTALLY LOBOTOMISED AS DEMONRATS, OR REPUBLIRATS, WHATEVER, THIS, A CLASSICAL HERD INTELLIGENCE FOLLOWING BLIND ILLEGIANCE TO EVERY PROMISING DRUMMER, BUT THEIR OWN. HERE, THESE MINDLESS DRIFTERS ARE AT A LOSS TO TRUST UNTO THEM SELVES, AND BEGIN TO ROTATE UNTO THE CLASSICAL RABBLE THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION HAD TO DEAL WITH. WE DO NOT NEED A JEAN PAUL MARAT, NOR A MARQUIS D. SADIE, BUT DO NEED TO CALCULATE HOW TO HANDLE A NATIONAL MOB’S INCLINATION TO REVOLT UNDER ESTABLISHED LAW.
AND NOW, THESE VARIOUS MOBS WITH MEDIA INDUCED PRENEUROLOGICAL LOBOTOMIES FALLS INTO THE GRAVITATIONAL SYNDROME. THIS IS THE LAST STRAW, WE NOW HAVE A NATIONAL MOB WEIGHTED DOWN WITH DIGRESSIVE INFATUATIONS, INCLINATIONS AS A RESULT OF POLITICAL OPPRESSIONS BEING FATHERED AWAY, INTO SUBCONSCIOUS HUMANOIDS, THAT ARE AWAITING THE MOMENT TO RELEAVE STORED UP REPRESSIONS, THAT CHEAP TABLOIDS AND MASOCHISTIC BAITING, IN SUBLIMATING STORED UP SEXUAL DRIVES, HAVE FAILED BY BRINGING THESE TANDRUNS TO THE PUBLIC FEEDING TROUGH AS ONE-ON-ONES.
THE DRIVING QUESTION. HOW WILL OUR NATIONAL REPUBLIC SURVIVE THESE EVER ENLARGING MOBS, THAT REQUIRE BREAD RATHER THAN CAKE. DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1892 QUEEN ANTONNETTE {?} WAS BEHEADED FOR SUCH CARELESSNESS OF OPEN EXPRESSION. WE LEAVE THIS DISCUSSION AS A WORD TO THE WISE. IT WOULD BE WELL FOR OUR NATIONAL POLITICIANS TO TAKE THE BULL
BY THE HORNS AND LOOK THE SITUATION SQUARE IN THE FACE. IN OTHER WORDS, CONGRESS SHOULD RECALL SOCRATES’ PERCEPTION, ( KNOW THY SELF ) INCIDENTALLY, SOCRATES COULD NOT BE MURDERED BY WAY OF GLANDULAR MURDER AS HE COULD TAKE THE PRESSURE OF POLITICAL WHOREDOM, BEING FED A JUG OF HEMLOCK INSTEAD. YET, THE MATTER OF GLANDULAR MURDER WORKED ON SENATOR JOE MCCARTHY,AND IS BEING USED AT THIS HOUR, IF ONE IS PUBLICALLY CASHIERED AND FAILS TO PLEAD TO BE FORGIVEN !
Hogorina
A good idea would be to drop this into journalism’s lap. Sure, a little repetitive, but life is one eternal round in battling the forces of the world, either with a sword or printed words. The truth must be spread one way or another. In a layman’s term not so easy. But then again, a word here and then will eventually grow from a mole hill into a mountain.
Hi, an E-mail original sent to interested parties! Please forward!
Reading your letter regarding a preselected voice to bench on the Supreme Court was only shocking in that it is unusual to learn that citizens are awake, as to how our Republican system is being destroyed with the likes of specific individuals invading the highest court in America. However, this has been the trend since Abraham Lincoln was betrayed by Chief Justice Taney in bringing on Lincoln’s assassination. Shakspeare surmised, ” Oh, truth where is thy sting.” ;
the very kernal, gist, of all we witness today can be discovered in Art.6, Sec.6 of the United States Constitution under Treaties. Yes, this was a plant by British financial imperalism, a pay
back from the Founding Fathers. Through this simple under-handed act, was the over throw of this government planned well in advance. Any intelligent personality can readily see how the enemies of all republics’ since Socrates, a ( Democrat ), had been attermpting to awaken citizens, as to how genuine democracy was the best life, and of which republicanism was the origination of a free capitalistic society. The only way out of our present sytem of emerging universal socialsm is to ring the bell of truth, that this tone will fall onto ready ears that love and seek truth for the future posterity of a nation’s soul;
and speaking of souls, citizerns have been blinded as to the manner that our Supreme Court is used to actually controll three-hundred million Americans, by seating nine members as a front, one member holding the master key, in breaking a tie on any national law, that is binding on the people, or against the Republic. It would take a complete fool that would ignore this simple matter as stated. The upcoming pre-selected personality that the American Bar Association has recommended to our President
is just another plant. Is this person another tie breaker? Apparently, we have a winner coming from the mobocratic-tuned Democratic wheel, that rolls on, bringing on the death knell for a dying Republic!
Hogorina
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