About 5,000 journalists in Spain, i.e. 20 percent of media employees, may lose their job by 2010 due to the economic crisis.

- Everything should be done to prevent such catastrophe, head of the Madrid Journalists Association Fernando Gonzalez Urbaneja said at a forum.

Newspaper advertising revenues in Spain dropped 20 percent in 2008, due to the country's troubled economy and an ad slowdown.

Since last summer 1,600 journalists have lost their jobs and by the end of 2010 their number may climb to 5,000 without measures for stopping the tendency, Urbaneja said.

In 2007 newspapers advertising revenues  in Spain were rather high due to the great number of real estate sales. //02.15.09 MiNa