PR Jobs vs. Journalism Jobs

Last week, the Bad Pitch Blog had an interesting interview with Brian Morrissey, Adweek's Digital Editor. Morrissey is the fellow known for calling out bad PR pitches on Twitter. It's best to stay off his naughty list.

One of Morrissey's answers brought up the fact that while traditional media is cutting back, the public relations industry is growing:

Recognize that media organizations are shrinking while PR is growing. The ratio of PR people to reporters is probably like 75:1. This is profoundly bizarre to me.

What does this mean? Basically, there's way more PR people than journalists (and a lot of e-mails in editor inboxes).

Nicholar Carr's blog, Rough Type, has followed the cutbacks plaguing news rooms across America. Check out his article here.

Chew on this: As we all know, journalism isn't the most secure job choice these days. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), between 2001-2004 newsroom jobs were slashed by 4 percent. That's about 2,300 jobs held by reporters, editors, photographers and artists. Another study by the ASNE found that an additional 600 newsroom jobs were cut in 2006.

On the other hand, the PR industry, in recent years, has grown (a lot). The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics (try saying that one 5 times fast) expects a 18% increase in PR jobs from 2006 to 2016. According to Alan Gottesman's article "From Boom to Bust" the entire marketing sector, by 2007, had climbed by 12%. Impressively, PR alone has risen by 44% since 1990.

I know the above statistics are from multiple sources but, here's a side-by-side comparison from our helpful friends at the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics: In 2006, there were 67,000 traditional media jobs (news analysts, reporters and correspondents) and 243,000 PR jobs. That's a 3:1 ratio. Not quite Morrissey's 75:1 ratio--but, then again if we just looked at assignment editors and producers, he's probably dead on.

When it comes to the media relations side of PR, these statistics prove the need to pitch well and pitch wisely. Just as people are overwhelmed with information overload, journalists and news folks are too. Help journalists cut through the clutter. Connect, relate and be relevant.