With all this talk of scholarships and job opportunities, it has got me thinking about what sort of job I want to have after completing this course. I’ve reached the same conclusion that I always do, the first thing I would like to try would be to work for a national daily newspaper. However, as has been brought up before, circulation figures are falling year on year, leading me to wonder if when we finally get out there, will there actually be any jobs left to have?

The circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations for The Sun, The Mail, The Times, The Guardian and The Independent in November 2008 were respectively:

3,045,899

2,193,715

621,831

358,379

201,113.

Each paper marked a drop from the same time in 2007 of around 1%, apart from The Mail which took a drop of almost 6% and the Independent one of almost 14%. Now this makes me especially sad because these two are my favourite papers.

Another thing that interests me, is the difference between the figures for The Sun compared to papers like The Guardian or The Times. Although I am not shocked to see that The Sun has the highest circulation, I am surprised by how low the numbers of the afore mentioned broadsheets are in comparison. Does the nation have no desire whatsoever to hear about more than Jordan’s latest boob job? Sad really isn’t it?

It may not be all boarded up windows just yet though as newspapers have been in decline since the 1960s. My hope is that if those of us who love our morning paper continue to buy them (or have them bought for us in some cases!) then they may continue to survive into the future. If we perhaps put a little more effort into saving the newspaper industry than we did into saving Woolies, maybe everything will be alright.