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Report: TV News Job Loss Slows-But at What Cost?

The headline, surely, seems encouraging-- TV Job Losses Could Be Slowing.

For those of us hanging on to local news jobs--or hoping to find one--any sign the storm is letting up means we can envision climbing up out of our storm cellars, evaluating the damage, and beginning to rebuild.

But I question whether the study reported by MediaJobsDaily can really be described, as Rachel Kaufman suggests as "signaling good news for all who are still hanging on."

The research, by Vocus, a company that specializes in selling software to public relations companies, suggests that from January to June, "on-air TV news experienced a net job loss of 401."  Great!  Then, the details:  "1,006 fewer TV journalists were working," (Not Great) "while 605 entered new positions."

Here's where the rainbow over the hill starts to fade, at least for me.  Who lost those 1,006 jobs? From my own direct experience, I can tell you many of them were among the most talented and experienced broadcast journalists working in the country.  And from reading the "Who's News" posts on ShopTalk and elsewhere, I can tell you the people who seem to be finding work are, predominantly the just out of college or just-jumped-150-markets-from Eau Claire" variety, and that means while job losses may technically be slowing, the overall picture remains bad.

Experience:  out.  Salaries:  headed down.  And there's little to suggest that will be slowing anytime soon, if ever.

Let's crowdsource this. Leave a comment below if you've had layoffs and hires at your station. Did green replace gray?  Go ahead and name the vets, but let's not pile on the newly hired kids, who can't be blamed for jumping at a chance of starting in a big market.  Let's leave their names out of this.

But we can tell a bigger story if we all report what we know directly from our own newsroom families.

So...are the job losses slowing?  And even if they are, is this "good news?"