When you ask Dan Rohn, founder of JournalismJobs.com, how his job listings website is doing these days, he summons an automotive analogy.
At its peak, in the mid 2000s, he says, it was like a Rolls Royce, it was so busy. Then around 2008 it dropped down to a Lexus. These days it's back up to a Mercedes - "a very nice Mercedes," he adds.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that after the sturm und drang of the last few years there are jobs to be had in the news business. Good news for Rohn, good news for everyone.
"There's plenty of jobs out there," the 43-year-old says by phone from his base in the San Francisco area.
Indeed, on one recent day this week there were more than 390 jobs listed under the Newspapers/Wires category; 120 in Online Media; and 30 under TV, among other categories. Rohn says on average the site carries 900 or so listings on any given day.
Rohn started the site in 1998 after working as an editor for The Washington Post and AOL. Over the years, not surprisingly, the changes in the news business have been reflected in the ads he gets.
Newspapers that once only required reporters to produce stories for print now expect them to be handy with digital photography and video, and to produce content quickly for websites.
"Print reporters have to wear so many hats now," Rohn says. "A higher percentage of newspapers want their reporter to carry digital cameras and to be able to put stuff on the web. And if they don't ask for those kinds of skills in their ad, they'll train reporters to do these things if they're hired. "
Newspapers "are desperate to save money," he adds. "What you're seeing now - with web, TV, print - is everybody chasing profits, everybody fine-tuning what they do and getting by with as little as possible. They ask more of the people they have. It makes it more stressful for reporters."
And with websites that need to be updated 24/7, papers operate more like wire services, Rohn says. The days of having several hours to write a story are over; breaking news items must be put online immediately.
Rohn says a lot of job listings come from small to medium-sized papers. "They're not giving up," he says. "They're adapting, improvising, developing a better web presence."
Which is good, he adds, because they're in the kind of communities that don't get covered by the national media.
As an example, Rohn mentions the ad he just received from the Northern Wyoming Daily News in Worland. "There's no way you're going to be able to get news on that community unless it's from that local paper," he says. "Journalism is in a huge transition right now, but people still need news and someone has to get it for them."
