Media havens: ‘Large share’ of news media lives in NYC, LA or D.C., study finds

There may be some truth in the repeated claims that the news media appears out of touch with everyday, grassroots America. Many don’t live there.

“New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are the financial, entertainment and political capitals of the United States — and that may help explain why they are home to a disproportionately large share of the nation’s newsroom employees,” says a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data covering the period from 2013 to 2017. “About one-in-five newsroom employees (22%) live in these three metro areas, which, by comparison, are home to 13% of all U.S. workers.”

The trend also affects regions. The data revealed that the greatest proportion of newsroom employees — particularly online journalists — live in the Northeast.

“Among the 10 largest U.S. metro areas by total population, only New York and Washington are home to larger shares of the nation’s newsroom employees than of U.S. workers,” the pollsters says. “Newsroom employees are about twice as likely as workers overall to live in New York (12% vs. 7%) and Washington (5% vs. 2%). Los Angeles has about the same share of each (5% of the nation’s newsroom employees vs. 4% of all U.S. workers).

“The remaining seven metro areas — Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia and Houston — each have between 1% and 3% of both newsroom employees and U.S. workers overall,” they wrote. “These 10 areas combined account for about 35% of all newsroom employees in the U.S., but about 28% of workers overall.”