There were about 36,700 full-time daily newspaper journalists at 1,400 US newspapers in 2013, a decline of 1,300 over a year earlier, according to an annual survey by the American Society of News Editors and the Center for Advanced Social Research.

asneDespite the overall decline, the largest and smallest papers showed small increases, including a 5.9% climb at papers with 500K-plus circulation and a 2.8% gain at papers with less than 10K. The largest drop came at papers from 100K-250K circulations, where journalists declined 16%.

Notably, nearly half of online-only outlets (43.7%) reported having more volunteers and part-time contributors than full-time employees.

The study showed a slight increase in the number of minority journalists – up 200 to about 4,900 – constituting about 13.34% of the overall journalism workforce. That figure goes up to 20% when only the 105 online outlets surveyed are counted. Minorities make up about 37% of the US population overall and ASNE has set a goal to have that figure more closely reflected in journalism, as well, by 2025.

Looking at gender, ASNE found that 63% of news organizations said they had at least one woman among their top three editors, while only 15% said a minority was among the top three staffers.

ASNE said 965 of 1,375 daily print papers responded to the census, which is funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.