Re-examining age: Journalism's reliance on the young

Journalism has long been seen as a 'young person's occupation'. While the average age of journalists has increased from 35 to 39 in past 20 years, this article investigates what developments are covered, or covered up, by this average. The Worlds of Journalism Study data permit us to compare journalistic workforce ages with that of the general workforce, we juxtapose labour force median ages with journalists' median ages in 60 countries. On realizing that age alone does not present experience, we also include years of professional experience as indicator for journalistic workforce profiling, and also analyse the journalistic and general workforce in age segments in 14 countries to arrive at a more detailed picture of age distribution. Our findings reaffirm that journalism is still an occupation for the young, and underscore the fact that in many countries journalists do not stay in the job for long. This leads us to contend that journalism lives with large numbers of young and relatively inexperienced workers, making it an easier transition into the digital age when journalism similarly is created from many diverse sources and with workers with varying levels of experience.