A dramatic turnaround in the newsrooms, where, after years of lean hardships, the entry of new income allows the recruitment of new journalists. However, the media community is also facing a shortage of manpower, which is still a lesser evil compared to all the cutbacks of the last two decades.
“We are not so much expanding as catching up, after difficult years when we were losing employees without having the means to replace them. Things are going a little better than they were going, so we take the opportunity to bring journalists back to the room, ”explains Claudine St-Germain, editor-in-chief of the magazine. News.
The monthly has had several hires lately, in part thanks to the 30% increase in its digital subscriptions, but also because advertising revenues have finally plateaued after falling for almost twenty years due to revenue diversion. advertising for the benefit of social networks.
Advertising revenue has even skyrocketed in the last year at the newspaper. Deals, where we also took the opportunity to make up for lost time by going in search of new feathers.
“It has been said a lot in recent years that traditional media are struggling because advertising revenues go to the web giants. Maybe the big advertisers have been made aware of that and they have decided to keep some of their money here rather than encourage Silicon Valley, ”suggests Martine Thomas, editor of the economic newspaper.
Government aid
The assistance programs put in place by Quebec and Ottawa have also played a large part in this wave of hiring which has swept through the written press for several months, from regional weeklies to major national dailies, such as The duty and Press.
The improvement in industry could however be short-lived if this aid were to disappear or be reduced, especially since it was initially announced as temporary measures. “It’s important to legislate so that the big digital players, like Facebook, pay their fair share. Without that, the recovery will always be fragile, ”underlines the president of the Professional Federation of Quebec Journalists (FPJQ), Michaël Nguyen.
Until then, the media are getting better, and hiring is running at full speed. In barely a year, the FPJQ has grown from around 1,400 to almost 1,650 members. However, we are still far from the some 2,000 journalists who joined the federation ten years ago, recalls its president, showing cautious optimism. “We go up the slope after having fallen really low, summarizes Michaël Nguyen. But it’s still good news that there are more journalists to dig into the news, especially in the current context. “
Shunned by students
However, some media are struggling to fill all the positions they advertise, Radio-Canada among others. Journalism schools are therefore actively involved. “There isn’t a week that goes by without receiving job offers. Our graduates find their place really quickly, including in large markets such as Montreal, ”says Blaise Gagnon, coordinator of the Art and Media Technology School at the Jonquière College.
For Blaise Gagnon, the labor shortage is also explained by the low retention rate of journalists, who often prefer to leave for public relations after a few years in the industry, tired of precariousness. In a context of widespread labor shortages, where all sectors are pulling the cover on their side to attract workers, conditions absolutely must change in the newsrooms if we are to create experienced journalists. , believes Mr. Gagnon.
“There is a gap between what is expected of journalists and what we are ready to give them as conditions. Young journalists are required to have very advanced skills in all kinds of fields, such as data journalism. But with the same kind of knowledge, you can go and work elsewhere, in artificial intelligence for example, and be paid much better, ”continues Colette Brin, director of the Center for Media Studies at Laval University.
At Laval University, you don’t rush to the gate to register in journalism. Mme Brin notes that the financial difficulties suffered by several press groups in recent years will have left the impression of a job without perspective among the students.
“Since I started teaching twenty years ago, there must have been a drop of about 20-30%. There are always people who dream of being journalists, for whom it is a vocation. But this is not enough to meet the needs, ”laments Colette Brin, who now hopes to convey the image of a field of the future.