Online News Sites Expect to Add 40% Additional Staff in 1998

Posted on January 20, 1998

The "typical" online news site in North America employs 8 people and is expecting to grow to 11 within a year -- representing growth of nearly 40% among a cross-section of small, medium and large sites. The typical European site now has 5 employees and expects to grow to 9 a year from now (+80%), indicating a strong will to catch up. Online news operations run by daily newspapers will drive this growth, with the typical site increasing staff by 57% in the next year, according to a new survey of 140 online news Web sites conducted by Interactive Publishing Surveys.

The same survey reveals salary structures of 19 different online news job titles. The median (worldwide) annual salary for online editors is US $51,000; for new media managers, $59,000; and for Webmasters, $43,000.

The median starting annual salary for recent college graduates is about $25,000. At European sites, the median starting salary is about $31,000, and 46% of new grads earn more than $32,000 annually (vs. 8% at U.S. news sites). These and other findings are available in this detailed survey of managers of 140 online news sites worldwide. The survey represents a first international benchmark on salary and staffing trends within the online news industry.

Authors: Riley Kirby/Interactive Marketing & Research (USA); Steve Outing/Planetary News (USA), a well known interactive media columnist for Editor & Publisher; and Norbert Specker/Interactive Publishing (Switzerland), proprietor of the popular annual Interactive Publishing conference in Europe. All are consultants and researchers who have been tracking the online news industry for 5 years.