News reporters are about average in terms of happiness.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, news reporters rate their career happiness 3.2 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 48% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy news reporters are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| News anchor | 3.7 | $67k |
| Journalist | 3.4 | $37k |
| Editor | 3.4 | $63k |
| Content manager | 3.2 | $40k |
| News reporter | 3.2 | $27k |
| Proofreader | 3.1 | $44k |
| Copywriter | 3.1 | $70k |
| Technical writer | 2.8 | $78k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are news reporters happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do news reporters find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as news reporters?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are news reporter’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are news reporters making the best use of their abilities?
Are news reporters happy with their salary?
News reporters rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.4/5. Most news reporters do not feel that their salaries adequately reflect their work, and are actively unhappy with their income.
We asked news reporters how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.4 out of 5 stars
238 news reporters
5% of news reporters rated their compensation 5 stars
13% of news reporters rated their compensation 4 stars
24% of news reporters rated their compensation 3 stars
29% of news reporters rated their compensation 2 stars
29% of news reporters rated their compensation 1 stars
Do news reporters find their jobs meaningful?
On average, news reporters rate the meaningfulness of their work a 3.3/5. Most tend to be satisified with the level of meaning they find in their careers.
We asked news reporters how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
241 news reporters
20% of news reporters rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
29% of news reporters rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
23% of news reporters rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
19% of news reporters rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
10% of news reporters rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as news reporters?
News reporters rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of news reporters find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked news reporters how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
278 news reporters
25% of news reporters rated their career fit 5 stars
34% of news reporters rated their career fit 4 stars
26% of news reporters rated their career fit 3 stars
10% of news reporters rated their career fit 2 stars
5% of news reporters rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a news reporter’s work environment?
As a whole, news reporters rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.4/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked news reporters how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.4 out of 5 stars
277 news reporters
21% of news reporters rated their work environment 5 stars
30% of news reporters rated their work environment 4 stars
25% of news reporters rated their work environment 3 stars
18% of news reporters rated their work environment 2 stars
7% of news reporters rated their work environment 1 stars
Are news reporters making the best use of their abilities?
Former news reporters on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 3.5/5. Most news reporters surveyed find that they manage to use their abilities to their fullest as a news reporter, which helps contribute to higher career satisfaction in the long term.
We asked news reporters how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
3.5 out of 5 stars
276 news reporters
21% of news reporters rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
31% of news reporters rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of news reporters rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
17% of news reporters rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
5% of news reporters rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars