Specify Your Purpose and Unit(s) of Analysis
As noted in the introduction, the various applications of journalism employment research — including, but not limited to, policy, philanthropy, academia, and/or newsroom practice — require varying levels of precision and comparability. Research questions, measurement approaches, and corresponding data needs will differ, based on the audience and purpose of your analysis. For that reason, it is essential to determine the purpose of the research at the outset.
Therefore, as you begin to design your study, clearly state 1) the purpose of the analysis, 2) the audiences you intend to reach, 3) the discussions or debates the research will aim to inform, and 4) the unit of analysis you intend to use for the research study.
Importantly, your journalism employment study may have myriad purposes, reach various audiences, and/or inform multiple discussions. For example, a place-based foundation funding a study of local journalism employment in their region may want their eventual findings to both inform their funding and, additionally, instruct policy debates. This is not uncommon, and is to be expected, given the complex and resource-intensive nature of these studies. However, these purposes should be clearly stated from the start to ensure that the final product is legible across different audiences and can be used to inform various discussions.
These purposes should be clearly stated from the start to ensure that the final product is legible across different audiences and can be used to inform various discussions.
Newsroom employment can be captured at different levels. Are you most interested in understanding how many people work as journalists or editors and where they work? Or are you most interested in how many jobs exist within the news production sector at a particular place? The answer to these questions will determine what type of database you will need to use.
For example, if you are interested in understanding how many people work as journalists or editors, you could examine Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), which provides establishment occupational staffing data within the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and Current Population Survey data, which provides individual/household-level occupation data.
If you are interested in how many jobs exist inside the news production sector (as defined by North American Industry Classification System or NAICS) in a particular place and time, you could rely on specific BLS data streams such as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Current Employment Statistics (CES), or the Economic Census because they include jobs attached to establishments that are clearly classified as news publishing/broadcasting.
If your use case demands a small geographic scale (such as a county or a community) as well as a specific cross-section of data (news/editors reporters within specific print news organizations), primary surveys or platform-based data are more effective than federal sources.
