• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 15, 2016

According to an article from Business Insider, reported by Matt Rosoff, as “somebody who started a journalism career back in 1992,” journalism isn't such a bad career choice after all!

But every so often, the article says, a journalist who thrived in the old days decries the current state of journalism and discourages youngsters from pursuing a career there.

Felix Salmon, for Fusion, wrote such an article responding to young journalists asking for advice, saying that “… the obstacles facing you are much greater than anything I managed to overcome… and I think this is probably the greatest era for journalism that the world has ever seen… but that doesn’t mean that life is good for journalists… enormous numbers of incredibly talented journalists find it almost impossible to make a decent living at this game… If there’s something else… you’re good at… you should think about doing that instead… “

Rosoff finds, though, that “… things were so much better in the old days, these columns usually say. Nowadays, everybody's just chasing clicks, it's a race to the bottom for advertising money, great journalists can't find decent paying work, and the work isn't very satisfying — basically woe and gloom… “ But, here's some data that suggest journalism isn't such a bad career choice after all, according to the report.

The chart from McKinsey used by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stats to plot compound annual wage growth in various industries between 1997 and 2014 (vertical axis), shows that the Media industry came in 2nd place. Wages grew at an average rate of more than 4%, second only to the oil and gas industry.

What's more, says the report, that growth is directly related to the shift to digital. The horizontal axis on the chart plots industries on McKinsey's "digital labor index," which measures factors such as the amount of digital capital invested and the share of occupations and tasks that are digital. Media has undergone the most dramatic transformation to digital of any industry in the U.S.

“… it's true that not all "media" jobs are journalism jobs, and money is certainly not the only factor in job satisfaction. But as somebody who started a journalism career back in 1992… ” says Rosoff, “… this rings true to my experience; there are far more living-wage entry-level journalism jobs today than there were before the internet took off… “

To review the article from Rosoff, please visit here.