Hiring, raises show strong demand for business journalists: Reynolds Center survey

The median salary for business reporters, correspondents, and freelancers who responded to the Reynolds Center’s annual survey is $85,278. This is 41.5% more than the most recent median salary for news analysts, reporters and journalists reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The vast majority of survey respondents (69.4%) stated their current position was as a reporter, correspondent, or freelancer, with 26.8% of respondents stating they are in editorial or managerial positions. The remaining respondents reported holding other roles, such as researcher, producer, or academic fellow. The median salary for all respondents this year was $92,500, with editors, supervisors, and managers reporting a combined median salary of $109,375. Very few respondents (2.1%) reported a decrease in salary in the last year, with the overwhelming majority (68.9%) reporting a salary increase. The remaining respondents stated their salary stayed the same (26%) or were too new to journalism (3%) to have had a change in their salary.

“The strong hiring and salary increases show that journalists with business expertise remain in high demand – and they continue to enjoy a healthy salary premium over other journalists,” said Dr. Jeffrey Timmermans, director of the Reynolds Center.

That demand isn’t accidental, according to Robert Barba, Board President of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) and politics editor at WNYC/Gothamist. 

“Journalists on the business beat play such a vital role in helping readers understand the world around them,” Barba said. “The public relies on business coverage to inform how they navigate their financial lives. I’m heartened to know that my colleagues are being compensated for the work they do.”

Print and digital media outlets are still overwhelmingly where business journalists have found work, with 93.2% of survey respondents reporting from these outlets. The remaining business journalists have found positions in radio, podcast, TV, or wire service outlets. While just over half of respondents (53.7%) reported that their newsroom is currently hiring journalists, the data show that hiring rates vary widely across publications. Journalists at global/national publications were most likely to have newsrooms that are actively hiring (75.4%), while journalists at the American City Business Journals (20%) were the least likely to work at a publication that was actively hiring.

The mix of respondents at print and digital media outlets is similar to the results from the 2025 survey, with a considerable proportion of journalists working for a trade publication (14.5%). The largest share of all respondents, 31.9%, reported working for a regional/local publication. Another quarter (26%) reported working at a global/national publication, with another 17% stationed at one of the American City Business Journals.

A total of 235 journalists from across 34 states (including the District of Columbia) responded to this year’s survey. The most common states included New York, Washington, California, Texas, and Florida. The age and career experience of respondents were very similar to those of the respondents from 2025, with an average age of 40.5 and 11.7 years of experience as a business journalist. 

A career for young and diverse journalists

Young journalists under 30 continue to be a sizable portion of survey respondents in the annual survey, with just over a quarter of this year’s respondents (26.4%) in that age group. Of those journalists, 64.5% reported receiving a salary increase in the last year, and overall, the group reported a median salary of $69,333.

Similar to the data collected in 2025, young business journalists in this year’s survey were more likely to be from diverse backgrounds, with 40.3% of journalists under 30 identifying their own race as something other than white. That percentage decreases to 26.5% in the 40-49 age group and reduces even more to 3.7% for journalists 60 and over. Additionally, 67.7% of journalists under 30 identified as female, compared to 49.7% of journalists 30 and over, and 11.1% of those 60 and over.

There are ample opportunities in business journalism for young journalists to explore their passions and learn new skills. For example, the young journalists in the survey reported a range of different beats that included more traditional business beats such as real estate, development, personal finance, and banking, as well as some less traditional beats such as sports, gambling and prediction markets, technology, retirement and aging, and city government. Young journalists also reported working for every type of publication in the survey and were pretty evenly distributed across the different regions of the United States. While most of the young respondents stated their current position as reporters, 11.5% of those respondents are already working in editor and supervisor roles, demonstrating a strong career path for young journalists.

“Amid the many pressures facing the industry today, it’s worth celebrating the fact that many talented young people are pursuing successful careers as business journalists, and they’re helping to make the industry as a whole more diverse – not just in terms of background but in the new types of beats they are pioneering,” said Timmermans.

Journalists on the move

This is the first year the Reynolds Center included a survey question on the length of respondents’ current position in addition to their experience level. While survey respondents reported an average of 16.7 years of experience as a journalist, over a quarter (27.2%) of the respondents noted they have been in their current position for a year or less. This data showcases that many journalists have been on the move in the last year.

According to the data, the American City Business Journals had the highest concentration of journalists in newer positions, with 47.5% of those journalists reporting a year or less in their current roles. In contrast, trade publications had the smallest percentage of newcomers (6.9%), with the bulk of these journalists (67.6%) reporting 2-5 years in their current position and no trade journalists reporting more than ten years in their role. Regional/local publications had the highest concentration of journalists who have been in their current roles for more than ten years (17.4%), demonstrating the long careers these types of publications can offer many journalists. 

Differences by publication type

For journalists seeking a stable position with a higher salary, it is not surprising that landing a reporting position at a global/national publication would yield the best results. In the survey, reporters at these publications had the highest median salary of any publication type ($116,875) with an average of 5.6 years in their current role. However, these reporters were also, on average, the oldest and most experienced of the groups. Their average age was 41.6 compared to 37.7 overall, and they had an average of 16.4 years of experience compared to the overall average of 13.8 years. 

For younger and less experienced journalists, trade publications may be a wise alternative to consider, as the median salary of those reporters was $91,667, with an average age of 35.6 and 11 years of experience as a journalist. On average, reporters at trade publications have been in their role for 3.3 years, with 76% reporting a salary increase in the last year.

The lowest salary for reporters by publication type was at the American City Business Journals, where respondents reported a median salary of $66,667. This lower salary can likely be explained by the higher percentage of reporters who are new to their roles (45.5% reported being in their role for a year or less), and the fact that this publication type had the youngest average age of all the publications at 31.4. In comparison, reporters at regional/local publications reported a slightly higher median salary of $71,071, but were on average 38 years old with 14.6 years of experience. The average time in their current role was 5.5 years, with 57.9% reporting a salary increase in the last year.

About the salary survey

The Reynolds Center reached out to business journalists throughout the country from small and large publications, including the American City Business Journals. The Center also collaborated with SABEW to invite their 2500+ members to participate between April 27 and May 18, 2026. Although this survey is by invitation only, business journalists are welcome to sign up to receive information about participating in future surveys.

This is the fifth consecutive year the Center has conducted this salary survey after reviving it in 2022. You can view past data results, compare between years, and read more about the survey process on The Reynolds Center website at businessjournalism.org/salary-survey.

The Reynolds Center for Business Journalism was established in 2003 in order to broaden the understanding of business journalism among journalism students, give journalists tools to improve their business coverage while promoting industry best practices, and help freelancers navigate working with a variety of publications. The Reynolds Center is housed inside the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

For more information about the Reynolds Center’s salary survey, contact: reynoldscenter@gmail.com.

The post Hiring, raises show strong demand for business journalists: Reynolds Center survey appeared first on The Reynolds Center.