초록
이 연구는 지역신문 기자들의 직업이동을 통해 지역언론의 현실과 기자들의 직업정체성 변화를 살펴보고자 했다. <대전일보>, <중도일보>, <충청투데이>의 대전지역 3개 종이신문에서 퇴직한 기자들이 어떤 이유로, 어디에서 어디로, 어떻게 경력 이동했는지를 알아본 결과, 동종 종이신문과 인터넷신문 같은 저널리즘 영역에서 활동하는 기자들이 있는가 하면 정치 행정 학계 경제 문화예술 등 여러 분야로 이직했다. 이들이 신문을 떠난 이유는 보수 복지 미흡과 미래비전 부재가 가장 많았으며 구조조정, 취재보도 활동제약, 많은 업무량도 영향을 주었다. 1997년 IMF 외환위기 이전 언론노동시장은 공채로 입사해 평기자, 차장, 부장, 국장으로 승진하는 전형적인 내부노동시장이었지만 뉴미디어의 등장과 신문기업의 경영난으로 내부노동시장이 약화되고 있음을 보여줬다. 기자들은 자기 개발을 통해 전문성을 높여 직업을 바꾸기보다는 지연 학연, 출입처 같은 사회자본을 적극적으로 활용함으로써 지역신문 본연의 감시비판 기능을 위축시키는 부작용과 함께 기자들의 직업정체성까지 훼손시키고 있었다.
This study set out to investigate the reality of local press and changes to the occupational identity of reporters through the job mobility of reporters at local newspapers. The study examined what reasons the reporters had when they retired from one of three paper newspapers in Daejeon, where they moved to, and how their career mobility was. Some of them remained in the field of journalism including paper newspapers of the same kind and Internet newspapers, and others moved to various areas including politics, administration, academy, economy, and culture and art. The biggest number of them said they left their old paper newspapers because of poor wages and welfare benefits and absence of future visions. Their decision of leaving their old paper newspapers was also influenced by restructuring, restrictions to coverage and reporting, and great workload. Before the IMF foreign currency crisis in 1997, the press labor market was a typical internal labor market with the practitioners joining a newspaper in open recruitment and climbing up the promotion ladder from a common reporter through Deputy Head and Head of a department to Director of a bureau. The emergence of new media and the financial difficulties of newspaper corporations were currently making the internal labor market worse. Reporters made active use of social capital such as regionalism, alumni ties, and news beats rather than changing jobs by increasing their professionalism through self-development, thus causing side effects including the weakened supervision and criticism functions of local newspapers and damaging their occupational identity as reporters.