J-school grads enter a raging bull market

By: Matt Villano Survey says industry's starting salaries highest ever

Newspaper circulation might be down, but there never has been a better time to enter the industry, according to a survey released by the University of Georgia's James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research in Athens, Ga.
The 12th annual survey documents continuing improvement in the labor market for graduates of journalism and mass communication programs around the country. At a median of $24,000, entry-level salaries in journalism jobs are higher than they've ever been, and more than 80% of the survey's 2,691 respondents had at least one job offer upon graduation. What's more, the employment gap between minority and non-minority graduates (6%) is the smallest it has been since 1993.
Lee Becker, director of the survey, describes the results as uplifting, and many of his colleagues in the industry agree.
But while academics and industry experts say they are encouraged by these findings, some also wonder whether the statistics reveal an accurate and complete picture of the journalism world today.
Cynthia Rawitch is one such skeptic. Rawitch, chairperson of the department of journalism at California State University in Northridge, says that although some 1998 graduates earn $24,000, not every j-school grad should expect to start at that salary.
"That figure would be an astronomical amount for students going to work in alternative weeklies or at dailies in small cities and towns," Rawitch says.
Conversely, students who go from the classroom to the newsroom of a large metropolitan daily can expect to earn more. On the rare occasions he hires entry-level candidates, Tom Rawlins, senior editor at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, pays as much as $10,000 more than the median established by the 1998 survey.
Rawlins says he's hopeful that, with salaries on the rise, newspapers like his will be able to hold onto young reporters who might go elsewhere for more money. "I've long thought this is an industry with a great tendency to shoot itself in the foot," says Rawlins. "When our journalism schools turn out great people, they end up leaving the business because they can't earn a decent living working for a paper. Maybe now, with statistics like these, that all will change."
According to the survey results, salary isn't as important to minority graduates as employment itself.
"Thanks to organizations such as the [American Society of Newspaper Editors], there's been a renewed effort in recent years to hire more minorities," says Steve Lacy, acting director of the school of journalism at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. Even so, he adds, the survey results "make you wonder how far we've really come."
Still other academics see the discrepancy in employment rates of minority and non-minority graduates as a positive.
Will Norton, dean of the college of journalism and mass communications at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb., says that because companies in other industries lure minorities from the journalism field with high-paying jobs, the full-time employment rate of minority graduates in journalism suffers.
"If you were offered $24,000 to be one of the only minorities in a newsroom or $40,000 to work in a diverse environment somewhere else, which would you choose?" Norton asks. "I'd say this statistic says more about the choices afforded to minority students than the choices they're denied."
Regardless of how many minority and non-minority graduates enter the industry after j-school, only 20% of survey respondents indicate they plan to retire as journalists, down slightly (21%) from 1997.
Mary Kay Blake, vice president for partnerships and initiatives for the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va., says executives should view this statistic as a reason to rethink the proposition that journalists must commit to the industry for a lifetime.
"Demographers have been telling us for a while that the average adult will have between four and six careers in [his or her] lifetime," Blake says. "It could be quite healthy for newspapers to adhere to this as well. [Papers] could have people come in for five or six years, then work in other fields and experience the industry as readers. When these people come back to journalism, just think ? they'd be able to make it truly responsive."
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DIRECTIVE:
DOCNUM:
DATE: Sat 21-August-1999
PUBLICATION: Editor & Publisher
CATEGORY:NEWS
SUBJECT:Margaret Sullivan and the Buffalo News
AUTHOR:Lucia Moses
LOCATION: Page 14



FULL TEXT:

New Buffalo News editor to focus on investigations

The Buffalo (N.Y.) News' new editor isn't the first woman to run a major U.S. newsroom, but at 42, she's believed to be the youngest, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (asne), which ranked her among the 14 women in the top editor jobs at the 100 biggest papers.
Margaret Sullivan replaces Murray B. Light, who retires Sept. 19 after 50 years with the paper. Sullivan says while she considers the asne finding interesting, "I don't want to be too focused on that as a distinction but more on what qualities I can bring to the paper."
Like her predecessor, Sullivan is a veteran of the News, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway inc. The Buffalo native started as a News reporter in 1980, rising to managing editor 19 months ago. As the top editor, she plans to continue her efforts to beef up the paper's local investigative reporting. "I think that's what local newspapers must do more and more to make themselves indispensible," she says.
Also look for the paper, a latecomer to the Internet, to put its editorial content online by early fall at http://www. buffnews.com. "The company has decided to take its time and learn what other papers have done, and get it right," Sullivan says.
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