Are more jobs appearing?
I’ve made it an irregular habit since the mid-naughties to scan the total number of jobs listed at JournalismJobs.com, and I was surprised recently to see the number back to pre-recession numbers at a whopping 738 ads!
I know, I know: there are all kinds of valid reasons why this number is worthless. Perhaps they’re all ad sales jobs (they’re not, I see), or JournalismJobs.com is more popular than ever (which could very well be true). For comparison, for “the longest time” (another precise term on my part) “a few years ago,” I noticed that the number hovered in the low 400s. And now it’s 738.
The figure may be a dubious and inexact barometer of the journalism employment picture in America, but I’ll take it.
A paywall against humiliation?
The indispensable paidContent has an interesting story on a bit of apparent site traffic numerical jujitsu from the Murdoch empire as News International approaches the raising of a paywall in June, when the Times and Sunday Times will start costing online readers £2 a week:
… both Times Online and Sun Online have stopped publishing their user numbers through the ABC [circulation auditors] in the UK.
March monthly figures for UK newspaper sites were issued Thursday – but both Murdoch sites are absent.
ABC confirmed to paidContent:UK that it is still auditing the publisher’s traffic numbers – but it is keeping the figures private at News International’s request and, at present, publication is not due to resume next month.
This means it will be hard to see exactly how many readers Times Online will lose when it starts charging …
Since the the Times and Sunday Times still plan to use advertising, it’s perhaps not surprising that the corporation wants, in advance, to apply a layer of lipstick on what will surely be, in the short term at least, a pig in the spotlight.
Hampton U Prof Named Outstanding Teacher
An AEJMC Newspaper Division selection committee has named Rick Kenney of Hampton University the division’s 2010 winner of the Outstanding Teacher Award.
A former journalist with the Baltimore Evening Sun, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other papers, Kenney was named Scripps Howard Endowed Professor of Journalism at the Hampton, Va., university last year. He teaches media ethics and media law and directs the school’s Academy of Writing Excellence. He has won numerous awards for both his journalism and his teaching, and also has been an Ethics Fellow with the Poynter Institute since 2003.
Kenney, former executive news editor at the Evening Sun, holds a doctorate in mass communication from the University of Georgia and has taught at the University of Central Florida, Troy State University and Florida Southern College. He also directed a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern residency program for copy editing interns from 2002 to 2008, and wrote COPY! The first 50 years of the Dow Jones newspaper Fund.
Brian Carroll of Berry College, co-chair of the Newspaper Division’s teaching standards committee, thanked Kenney’s nominators, Rick Brunson, John Gogick, Melissa Patterson and Tim Lynch. Presentation of the award will be made at the business meeting of the Newspaper Division during the AEJMC National Convention Aug 4-7 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in Denver.
