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More Than One-Fifth of Newsroom Employees Live in NYC, L.A., D.C.

The New York Times building is seen on September 6, 2018 in New York / ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
October 27, 2019

More than one-fifth of all U.S. newsroom employees live in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., according to a newly published report.

A Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from 2013 to 2017 found that 22 percent of newsroom employees live in the three cities. New York (12 percent) had the greatest share of newsroom employees, followed by Los Angeles and Washington with 5 percent each.

That proportion was almost twice the 13 percent of all U.S. workers who call the three cities home. Just 7 percent of all workers live in New York, with only 4 percent living in Los Angeles and 2 percent living in Washington.

The share of newsroom workers in the three cities is slightly higher than it was between 2005 and 2009, when Pew found about 20 percent of them lived there.

All three cities are known for their strongly progressive bent. A Republican has not won New York City in a presidential election since 1924, or won Los Angeles County since 1984. No Republican has ever won Washington, D.C., in a presidential election.

According to Pew, only New York and Washington are home to a greater share of newsroom workers than workers overall. Given their significance in media and politics, those two cities are the broadcasting sites for every major show on cable and national network news.

Pew also found that 41 percent of newsroom employees who work in internet publishing live in the northeast, while just 18 percent of all workers live in the region overall. Thirty-seven percent of all workers live in the south, but it's home to just 21 percent of newsroom employees who work in internet publishing.