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State and federal labor statistics show that employment among Bay Area media workers fell 43 percent since 2001, a result of massive restructuring at local news outlets whose financial losses measured in the billions of dollars.
Newspapers were hit the hardest, shedding upwards of 4,000 employees. As dozens of papers merged in an effort to cut costs, reporters who used to compete for scoops found their jobs redundant.
While employment appears to have risen in the television and radio sector over all, journalists among them did not fare so well, state employment data suggest.
A detailed study of local journalist employment, released in April by the North Valley Job Training Consortium, or NOVA, found that both California and Bay Area newspapers fared worse than those in other regions of the country. Statistics from the state Employment Development Department and the federal Department of Labor show the region’s papers shed nearly half their employees. Nationally, 36 percent of newspaper jobs disappeared.
The two leading newspapers in the region are certainly much diminished. The combined newsroom staffs of the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News have shrunk to fewer than 300, after peaking in the year 2000 at more than 1,000 workers. Much of that was an inevitable result of advertisers and readers migrating online.
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