Author: John Russial
Publication: Mixed Messages on Pagination and Other New Skills, Newspaper Research Journal, volume 16, no. 1 (winter 1995), pp. 60-70.
The percentage of Editor & Publisher help-wanted ads that recommended or required editing candidates to have pagination skills grew significantly between 1987 and 1993 - even though managing editors ranked pagination skills low on the list of those journalism schools should emphasize.
Russial found that ads requiring editors or reporter/editors to have pagination skills grew from less than 1% in 1987 to 14% in 1993. The percentage of ads that recommended pagination skills grew from 3.8% in 1987 to 16.5% in 1993.
Overall, 46.8% of 1993 ads for editors mentioned page design/layout skills, 44.5% mentioned copy editing skills and 31.2% mentioned desktop publishing/pagination skills. This increase was recorded at a time when members of the Associated Press Managing Editors group ranked desktop publishing eighth on a list of 11 skills journalism schools should focus on.