The End of Journalism as a Middle Class Job

This month’s Sidney winner is on the downsizing of journalists and how what was once a middle-class job is now an itinerant job that is emblematic of the New Gilded Age economy.

From 2007-2015 the number of U.S. journalists at daily papers dropped from 55,000 to 32,900, not counting the buyouts and layoffs last fall. Older journalists were particularly hard-hit, and older women were among the hardest-hit of all.

Maharidge spent six months interviewing these downsized journalists. His subjects shared their anger, their confusion, and their frustration at an industry that cast them aside at the peak of their skills. Age discrimination bars many established journalists from bouncing back after a job loss: a former war correspondent drives for Uber, a career photojournalist caters pizza parties, and a reporter in her seventies struggles to navigate the freelance market.

And Maharidge found up-and-coming journalists craving veteran advice: “A young newspaper journalist in the intermountain West said, “I’m 24, and I feel like I’m already one of the better journalists in the state. I absolutely should not feel that way, but it’s because the good older ones are dropping off. What I want more than anything is to be surrounded by people who could take my work and hack it up, show me all the ways it could be better.”