For the second year in a row, newspaper reporters have found themselves among uncomfortable company on CareerCast’s annual list of endangered jobs:Â Right next to mail carriers, meter readers, farmers and other professions that have been disrupted by technology.
“Another industry in decline is the media industry, which is undergoing a profound transformation as outlets work to keep up with evolving technology,” reads a grim but accurate assessment of print journalism’s outlook. “From its earliest days, the Internet has posed a challenge to those steering the course of newspapers, as more people began viewing their news digitally.”
Within seven years, the number of newspaper reporters will decline by 13 percent, according to CareerCast, outpacing the decline of logging workers (9 percent), jewelers (10 percent) and flight attendants (10 percent).
That bleak assessment dovetails with last year’s report from CareerCast, which also put print newsies at number four on its list of endangered professions, ahead of travel agents and lumberjacks.
Newspaper reporters have had the dubious honor of appearing on a number of CareerCast’s lists in the last few years for unpleasant reasons. In 2013, the jobs site listed ink-and-paper journalist as the worst profession on its list of 200. Since then, newspaper reporter has dueled with lumberjack for the grim distinction of being the second-to-worst profession listed by the site.
Many outlets throughout the U.S. are aware that print revenue losses are causing contractions in the newspaper industry and are taking corrective steps to increase their chances of survival. The New York Times, for example, recently announced a plan to double its digital revenue by 2020 on the heels of an acknowledgement from its public editor that print dollars aren’t enough to buoy the company forever. Other companies, like Hearst Newspapers, are using some combination of print revenue, digital subscribers, Web display ads, native advertising and marketing services to boost their bottom lines.
