• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 2, 2002

Professor Emeritus Vernon Stone of the University of Missouri recently posted an analysis of a national survey funded by Freedom Forum and conducted in 1990-91 reporting on the newspeople working at local television stations. He concludes in 2001 that, while these newspeople have much in common with those of 1950s and early '60s in newsrooms, much has changed across half a century.

The typical TV journalist surveyed in 1990-91 was a 30-year-old married white man. Through the 1960's almost no minorities worked at most newsrooms. The minority share of TV news staff jumped from an unsurveyed very few in the 1960s to 12% in 1972 and 16% in 1977. Across the next 17 years, little change, to 18% in 1994, and continued status quo is indicated today.

Big changes in females in the newsroom. From about 10% female staff at WHAS in Louisville in the 1950s to 20% in a 1976 national survey, 32% in 1986 and 38% in 1994. That includes heavily male sports, weather and photography. Of news reporters, anchors, producers and supervisors, women now number at least half. Their share keeps growing.

The age of men (32 in '91) and women (28 in '91) remains unchanged over time. Median age was also 30 in 1972 survey. TV newspeople, on average, have always been young. Women average younger because they don't stay in TV news as long as men.

Times have changed for education. In a 1972 survey, only 58% of TV newspeople had degrees, 28% had just some college and 14% had none. The 1990-91 survey found that 90% of producers, reporters and anchors held degrees. Estimate for 2000: Except for photographers, roughly 95% college graduates. And new hires are now predominantly journalism/communication majors. They made up 91% of the entry hires by news directors in the 1991 RTNDA-sponsored survey. In 2001 the growing prevalence of high-tech, low literacy in TV news suggests that computer skills might overtake a writing background.

Read the complete study analysis here.