(Corrects that the majority of 5,000 new jobs were added over the past six years, not 2013, paragraph 7)
By Jennifer Saba
March 26 (Reuters) - A new wave of funding by technology-savvy investors into U.S. media companies is driving momentum in journalism, even as news organizations continue to face challenges, according to a report issued on Wednesday.
The level of media investing activity is forging the underpinnings of "game-changing" developments for the industry, according to the Pew Research Center's State of the News Media 2014 report, which cited funding from entrepreneurs like Amazon's Jeff Bezos and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
"There is an unmistakable sense of new energy that emerged over this last year," said Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at Pew and an author of the report. "What we are seeing are individuals with ties to technology companies and an innate understanding for technology move into reporting."
Bezos, the founder of online retail giant Amazon, stunned the media sector last August with his deal to acquire the Washington Post for $250 million from its longtime owners, the Graham family. Bezos has said told employees of the newspaper that they will have to "invent" and "experiment" as the Internet revolutionizes the news business.
In October, Omidyar said he would build an independent media organization covering news from sports to politics for mainstream readers.
Venture capital firms invested at least $300 million into new media digital startups in 2013, which have added new jobs over the past year, the Pew report estimates.
The report said that its first-ever tally found about 5,000 full-time jobs, the majority of which were added in the last six years, were created at nearly 500 digital news outlets ranging from BuzzFeed to Gawker to smaller local outfits.
"Even as the challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities of this year have created a new sense of optimism - or perhaps hope - for the future of American journalism," the authors of the study wrote.
Several new media startups including Vox Media and Mashable, which are investing in reporting, have received millions of dollars in venture funding the past year.
Still, the study cautioned the new investments and jobs represent only a sliver of the overall media industry, which is hemorrhaging revenue and slashing headcount.
The report estimates that the news industry in the United States generated roughly $60 billion in annual revenue with advertising accounting for almost 70 percent. Investment from venture capital and philanthropy amount to only 1 percent of the total.
In comparison, Google alone generated about $59 billion in revenue last year.
Overall, the newspaper industry, which accounts for the largest portion of reporting, lost more than 16,000 jobs from 2002 until 2012. The industry now counts about 38,000 editorial jobs.
The State of the News Media takes a wide survey of the media landscape including cable and broadcast television. This year marks the 11th edition of the report.
The authors also noted the feeding frenzy for local broadcast TV stations that resulted in several big acquisition deals for Gannett, Sinclair, and Tribune Co .
Transactions were up more than 200 percent with value of $8 billion worth of deals up 367 percent. (Reporting by Jennifer Saba in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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