Italy, a country of poets, saints, seafarers. And journalists. That is the impression one gets looking at the figures published in the 2025 Journalist’s Agenda, the database compiled by the Italian Center for Documentation on Journalism, which each year surveys communication professionals in Italy. The number of Italian journalists has exceeded 108,000, while there are 11,934 communication and marketing professionals, who are also involved in media relations activities.
The professional association for the category, the Ordine dei Giornalisti, a key source for official data on Italian journalists, reports around 28,000 members registered as professional journalists (those who practise journalism as their main professional activity) and a further 75,000 registered as external contributors (called “pubblicisti”).
Six journalists per 10,000 inhabitants
Finally, the Observatory on Journalism by the Italian Communications Authority (AgCom) estimates around 36,000 active journalists, excluding journalists who are no longer practising and retirees, equal to 5.6 journalists per 10,000 inhabitants.
This is similar to the figure for France (5.2 per 10,000 inhabitants), but much lower than the United Kingdom (9.6) and significantly higher than the United States (2.8).
Returning to the data from the Journalist’s Agenda, officially registered news outlets in Italy number 3,207, including 94 news agencies, 96 daily newspapers and 713 specialised and technical radio and television outlets. Communication and press office agencies, on the other hand, total 5,623 across Italy.
Sixteen journalists are enough to make a daily newspaper in Italy
In terms of education and skills, the AgCom Observatory notes that 70% of Italian journalists hold a university degree and that there is widespread knowledge of foreign languages, with English predominant and known to some degree by 99% of professionals, although only 50% have a B2 level or higher. Digital skills are medium or medium-high for 54.4% of journalists.
The in-depth study conducted by AgCom also measured the average size of newsrooms across different media: from 53 staff on daily newspapers (including 16 journalists, 35 external contributors and 2 other professional figures) to 21 on television, down to 9 on radio. However, within each type of outlet there is a marked difference between national and local newsrooms.
In particular, local media are increasingly characterised by very small internal teams (on average, as few as 5 people on a local radio station), mostly relying on external contributors and, in many cases, on the purchase of pre-packaged news formats.
Also read: How press office works in Italy
