Biz journalism salaries top the industry

Business journalists continue to earn an impressive premium over their general-news peers, according to a new survey from the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State.

Front-line business journalists – reporters, correspondents, and freelancers – who responded to the survey, conducted from April 15 to May 1, 2024, reported a median salary of $75,599. That’s $18,099 higher – or 31.5% more – than the median salary published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for news analysts, reporters, and journalists in May 2023 – the most recent data available at the time of publishing. This is the third consecutive year the Reynolds Center has conducted this survey and demonstrates a clear and consistent premium in the salaries reported by business reporters.

Although a majority of respondents (72.7%) stated their current position was a reporter/correspondent or freelancer, another quarter of respondents were editors, supervisors, or in senior management positions. The median annual salary for all respondents was $82,250, with editors and managers reporting a combined median salary of $105,000. Almost 70% of respondents stated their salary had increased in the last year.

“The data are clear: business journalism is a valued, and valuable, career,” said Jeffrey Timmermans, director of The Reynolds Center. “The entrenched salary premium enjoyed by business journalists shows no signs of disappearing.”

A total of 209 journalists from 34 states responded to the survey, with almost a third of respondents reporting from four states: New York, Texas, California, and Massachusetts. The average age of respondents was 42.6 with an average of 17.7 years of experience as a journalist.

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