As radio journalists get older, pay loses some of its power to drive them out of news operations. Two of five who are 40 or older still say it might cause them to change careers, but that's down from two-thirds of those in their 20s. The 40-plus newspeople are also less likely than younger ones to leave because of stress or lack of advancement. Factors of family life and disenchantment with the field cross age lines pretty evenly. Regardless of position, low pay threatens to drive at least half of the radio journalists into other fields.
News directors show the most likely departures.
Family life, advancement concerns and disenchantment with the field all tend to affect news directors and reporters more than anchors. Stress is least likely to drive out reporters. The question of what they might do after departing radio news was not asked directly as in the TV news survey. The other half had in mind jobs outside the mass media. One of my earlier surveys asked radio news directors what they thought they would do if they stopped being news directors.