In October The Alliance conducted a small-scale survey of editors and senior editorial staff to compare Australian news organisations to their US and UK counterparts. In July 2008, the Pew Foundation asked US editors how their organisations managed change. It surveyed 259 newspapers of various sizes and markets and found that 59 per cent had less newsroom journalists than three years previously, compared to 14 per cent with more, and 27 per cent unchanged.
Only 4 per cent believed their newsrooms would grow, 36 per cent said they would shrink and 7 per cent did not know. Given recent industry turmoil, some may revise their answers.
Editors, generally, are optimistic – about 75 per cent feeling positive about the future.18 When The Alliance asked Australian editors for their opinions, the reactions were mixed. Pessimists tended to cite economic pressure on staffing and, hence, quality. However editors who pointed to the unprecedented engagement with news online outweighed them: “Our audience is bigger than at any time in my career and there are more ways to deliver the news than ever before,” wrote one, while another wrote: “I think that journalists are in a great position to gather, harness, interpret, deliver great quality journalism, and now there are a plethora of opportunities in the way that content can be delivered.”
All respondents understood the challenges, but one wrote: “Journalism is a grand old profession and keeping the bastards honest is something that will never die, as is providing vital community information, news and advice – I think newspapers will continue to have that voice for five years and beyond.”
