Many news organizations have been shedding jobs this year, but there are still some segments of the industry that are hiring, according to the weekly email and Substack newsletter, “Inside the Newsroom.”
The publication, created by Madrid-based journalist Daniel Levitt, lists journalism job openings, internships, fellowships, events, awards, and salaries. The newsletter has a free option with a few job opportunities and then a monthly fee for access to a wider selection of job openings.
Why did you create Inside the Newsroom?
Levitt: I’m hoping to fill a void with the newsletter, because when I started journalism — I studied journalism at the University of Missouri — there was nothing like this. I spent so much time searching for jobs, applying for them and internships and events and awards, all that kind of stuff, and so I decided to do it for other journalists.
Despite it being a seemingly bleak landscape for journalism, you are still posting weekly items about hundreds of journalism job openings. What trends are you seeing about where most of the jobs are?
Levitt: I guess it’s counter narrative, but I actually haven’t seen any major drop in volume of journalism jobs, which is obviously a great thing. I think probably the number of outlets that are hiring has dropped off … and hiring at some of the legacy media organizations, like Vox, New York Times, Washington Post have dropped off recently … But broadcast TV … and those with multimedia operations are still hiring. NextStar, Scripps, and Gray Television — they’re all hiring.
What are the trends in terms of the types of job openings you are seeing?
Levitt: We are seeing a lot on the non-editorial side. Product strategy, audience analytics, subscriptions, and membership … The big trend with news organizations.. [is that they are] going more and more toward subscriptions and paywalls… and the salaries for the … non-editorial roles are pretty nice. They pay very well, I would say, compared to the editorial side.
So you aren’t seeing as many jobs on the editorial side?
Levitt: There are jobs on the editorial side … but I see less of them advertised. In terms of the kind of editorial jobs that I do see … the more popular, I would say, are social media, search engine optimization, audience [development], and analytics.
You turned your side hustle into a full-time job, what advice do you have for other journalists interested in making it into full-time work?
Levitt: Just start something… When I worked at the FiveThirtyEight, I got great advice from someone I worked with, Walter Hickey, who now runs a very successful Substack called Numlock News. And he told me to just write some grafs and press send. Don’t worry about it being perfect. I think so many people in this world, especially journalists, are perfectionists … and then, too often, we become paralyzed with fear. You don’t even have to send it to anyone.
That’s the other thing. You can do a secret Substack or a secret podcast. And just offload some of the stuff you’re obviously burning inside to shout about. Making it an actual business… It’s really hard — and it takes a lot of time and dedication — with no promise of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…
But I would say just start something now so that you’re protected for tomorrow. That’s a big reason why I started my newsletter. I knew I needed something to essentially protect myself, in case I lost my job.