Biz journalists make $56,000 a year, according to study

U.S. business journalists reported a median salary of $56,220 for 2010-11, according to research for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism released Tuesday.

Linda Austin of the Reynolds Center writes, “Those figures come from phone surveys of 773 randomly selected business journalists, about 60 percent of whom were interviewed in 2010, with the rest questioned in 2011. The median means half make more and half make less.

“The research was commissioned by the Reynolds Center and conducted by Behavior Research Center Inc., a market-research firm in Phoenix.

“The 2010-11 median is lower than the $65,000 to $70,000 that was volunteered by 394 business journalists in an informal online survey by the Society of Business Editors and Writers last year. It finished collecting data for its 2011 survey Aug. 12.

“In the Reynolds research, fewer business journalists reported a drop in pay than when the same question was asked in 2010. Last year, about one in three reported a decline in pay over the past two years, compared with fewer than one in five this year.”

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