Those who have been following our site or indeed following the trends within the industry over the past 18 months will not be surprised by the news, as reported by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) last week.

The membership organisation for daily editors, which has been carrying out yearly surveys for 31 years, says 5,900 newsroom posts were cut last year, representing more than double the cutbacks in 2007. This contrasts to the news that online vacancies had risen by 21 per cent to 2300, but only up from 1900 positions two years ago, which given the explosion of social media over the last couple of years and its influence on news reporting, is considerably low.

Mediabistro.com believes this number is likely to "jump by at least 50 per cent by the end of this year," although it admittedly has little to go on other than the proliferation of web start-ups in recent months "some of which are bound to succeed."

The diversity of the newsroom has also been affected, with just 13.4 per cent of minorities occupying traditional print roles compared to 19.6 per cent at online news sites. Charlotte Hall, president of ASNE, said in a statement: "The loss of journalists is a loss for democracy," and "the loss of people of colour from our newsrooms is especially disturbing because our future depends on our ability to serve multicultural audiences. ASNE is committed to keeping newsroom diversity on the front burner even in tough times."

Sources: ASNE , Media Bistro , News Cycle