by Laura Simmons

Justin Ocean shook hands with a recruiter from Gannett Co. and took stock of the options around him.

Ten days ago, he was laid off as editor of The Out Traveler magazine. On Friday, he was at the NLGJA convention job fair to make the rounds and look for a new direction.

Regent Media, which owns several publications including The Out Traveler and The Advocate, recently cut 10 percent of its workforce, including Ocean.

"(I was) shocked, sort of hurt, a little bit angry, but ultimately I knew it was a business decision, not a personal decision," the 26-year-old said.

But he's staying positive.

"I'm casting a wide net," he said. "I've worked primarily in gay media, and I'd like to transition."

The number of recruiters at this year's job fair is up — 44 compared with 38 in 2007 —causing some surprise amid the swirling pessimism surrounding the future of print journalism and the media in general.

Gail Shister, a metro reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, was "shocked and delighted" there were more recruiters at the job fair but remained pessimistic of what lies ahead.

"The Inquirer makes the Titanic look like a cruise ship - it's beyond a mess. We've had tons of layoffs and more are coming," said Shister, who's been at the Inquirer for 29 years.

"I'm flabbergasted frankly that anyone is hiring, given the problems of media in general and newspapers in particular. The fact that anyone is even interviewing is a nice surprise," she said.

And more importantly, many are hiring.

Job openings range from freelance photographers and reporters to entertainment editors and production assistants. But by far, most of the openings were in digital and online media.

The New York Times Co. was at the convention looking to fill 25 jobs in new media, including a Web developer job that opened as recently as Wednesday.

"This is a growing section of the newspaper," said Michelle Agins, who was staffing the table.

"In the past year and a half, there has been a big push for the development of the Web," added Jesus Martinez, who was also staffing the table. "The company is really focusing on digital and nyt.com."

Diane Parker, director of staffing and diversity for The Associated Press, said they were looking to hire in business, entertainment, photography, sports and general assignment news. Some of the positions opened as replacements, but several were new creations, she said.

"I'm not surprised that someone may be flabbergasted that newspapers have openings, but at the AP we have openings," she said. "It's a large organization. We're all over the place. In some area of news, we'll always have some openings."

Parker said the AP has hired from job fairs in the past, although she couldn't specifically remember hiring from an NLGJA conference. As of Friday, Parker had "at least 25" positions she was looking to fill, but "not much traffic."

"I'm waiting to talk to some folks," she said. "I'm like, 'Where is everyone?'"

Metro Weekly was also looking to hire, as were Fox News and NPR. But Reuters was one that was not looking for new employees.

"We really (have) few positions open externally," said Richard Leong, who was in charge of the booth. He said the company came because "it's just important to have a presence."

PR Newswire was another company not at the job fair to hire. Christine Cubé, who was staffing the booth, was there to sign up reporters for their public relations wire service.

David Barre, executive director of NLGJA, said many recruiters come to the convention when they aren't offering jobs to help build their company name or to gain access to reporters. For his part, Ocean decided to try and stop by every booth.

"It sucks to lose your job, but I think that ultimately it's going to be a good step," he said. "I'll just have to find something more stable next time."