Would you encourage a career in journalism?

I regularly get offers for these types of roles. Will eventually take one when I’m jaded enough!

As a senior journalist i earn a six-figure salary, but i started 35 years ago. Today’s teenagers and uni students have far greater challenges to achieving that salary in middle age, from AI and overseas outsourcing to fragmentation of the audience. It’s a real long shot now.

Get credentialed in a professional role, and then try to break into journalism by virtue of expertise.

Comms / marketing/ PR jobs for ex journalists aren’t what they used to be, either. Don’t go by the past 40-50 years. Look at today’s reality.

My DS is doing an MA is sports journalism with an undergrad in history. I'm not convinced he'll get the success he wants and deserves - but I think there are still jobs and opportunities in sports broadcasting and writing...

His writing is genuinely very very good so I wouldn't want him not to at least try. But I am more than sure he is due a lot of knockbacks.

I really wouldn’t bank on having your pick of highly paid comms jobs in this economy. Comms professionals who have only ever done comms and have 20 years experience are struggling to find roles.

This is sad. The death of ye olde journalism is the death of information and communication, and ultimately the death of democracy.

Further nearly all careers are areas are like this, nearly all have professionals saying not to encourage youngsters into it. One sector after another being killed by computers.

BTW re low wages - as a senior journalist I earn roughly what my teacher DH earns. Not a fortune but we are comfortable.

Digital news journalist here. It’s a challenging industry but I love my job. One day I’m talking to an expert volcanologist, the next day covering a murder, the next a neighbours at war story. It has changed a lot and the industry has shrunk but I’ve clung on because it’s so varied and I love the adrenaline.

once I’m ready to jump ship I’ll have my pick of highly paid communications jobs. It’s not all bad!

My friend is a very successful journalist, winning awards frequently. She absolutely loves her job. But the money is absolutely shit. She has almost always been freelance and has no pension to speak of.

The internet and subsequent plunge in paper sales has really done for journalism. No one wants to pay to read anymore or even pay for skilled people to write as citizen journalists do it for free. Now AI is making things worse.

No i’d not encourage a young person into journalism.

DC has a degree in journalism and writes freelance for some very big name magazines. She can barely support herself and after eight years has never had to pay off any of her student loan. However, she absolutely loves writing and the opportunities she’s had.

Former broadcast journalist here (radio and tv) - I absolutely loved my job. I started out in local radio then national radio, national tv then back to radio. I was a general reporter so one day I’d be at the Old Bailey covering a major court case, the next day I’d be at a singing dog competition.. My working days were a mix of exhilaration, fascination, stress, boredom (there was quite a lot of being a ‘coiled spring’ waiting for something to happen). I met my dh through work and many of my closest friends.

Once I had children it became increasingly difficult to mix work and childcare and I reluctantly resigned and I now work in charity comms. Of my former colleagues, about half (mostly the men ..) are still in broadcast news but many have switched careers. The job is very different now and I think in many ways even more stressful - when I was in radio we were attached to a particular programme and we provided material primarily for that programme with occasional offers of packages, interviews or clips for other outlets. Junior reporters now are having to churn out a constant stream of material for insatiable outlets and I’m not surprised mistakes are made.

Would I advise one of my children to go into journalism now? Only if they had a burning passion to do so and they’d still need a hefty dose of luck. I wouldn’t advise anyone to go into print journalism as AI is devastating local news which used to be the talent pipeline. But there are still careers to be made in broadcast journalism, but aspiring journalists will need to deal with a lot of rejection and be prepared to pivot if it doesn’t work out.

Only if they want to be a pauper.

Lifelong journalist here. The only reasonable approach these days is to obtain STRONG degrees and credentials in a reputable field - nursing, economics, bioscience, finance, aviation, law, whatever. Once one is an expert in some field, one can branch out into writing about it, being a commentator, etc.

Under no circumstances spend money on any such degree as journalism, PR, communications, etc.

AI, low-wage overseas workers, bloggers etc are undermining what were traditional jobs for journalists. I would lock my kids in a wardrobe before encouraging them to attempt a journalism career these days. Don’t waste valuable youth and time.

One of our copywriters has a journalism degree.

@crumblingfacade your post reminded me of the random trade magazines that pop up on Have I Got News For You.

Totally agree with wateringcans - my parents were amazing and always encouraged us to follow our dreams. None of us 3 siblings ended up doing the career we set out for but have all ended up pretty successful, the mindset our parents instilled was the thing that really stuck, that if you go for your dreams and work hard you can succeed at whatever you want. My sister wanted to be an actress and now she has a 3 figure salary in tech aged 30, my bro wanted to be a pop star and is now a successful music producer, I trained to be a doctor and now work in pharma and AI. In the UK it's so easy to pivot into different careers you didn't study for, it's the mental approach that stays with you. In contrast, my partner's parents always encouraged them to go for "sensible" jobs and instilled fear of chasing "unstable" careers - now my partner and his brother are very fearful of changing away from their jobs that are now no longer viable careers because their industries have changed. With AI everything is going to change but its impossible to predict how, so I think the best gift you can give your kids is the belief that if they work hard and go for their dreams they can do it - this will give them ambition, courage and flexibility in their mindset in the future, so will be much more likely to be successful in this rapidly changing world

Journalist here 👋

I’ve been qualified for 15 years. When I was doing my degree, we covered how the new (back then!) emergence of social media would change the traditional journalism landscape. I didn’t fully believe it would happen in the capacity we covered - Facebook was in its complete infancy and I didn’t think citizen journalism would ever overtake qualified journalists.

I worked at a press agency for a while, ran a magazine, launched a magazine, freelanced - you name it, I’ve done it. I loved the thrill of the chase when it came to a story and I was a total news junkie. When you talk about passion for something, I had it.

However, as the years go by, journalists are being cancelled out by ‘writers’, who are doing so much illegal shit in terms of what can and can’t be printed and don’t possess the right knowledge. Nobody cares because it’s about speed - who can get it out there first. Accuracy is an afterthought and good stories are measured in metrics of views, clicks and likes. Your qualifications don’t matter like they used to.

Bauer is going through another round of redundancies and many journalists are paid in shifts with a target of how many articles are expected per shift. And the money is shit. In short - churnalism. For freelancers, we used to be paid per piece, based on how much each newspaper wanted the article - your skill was important because it increased the value of your work. If it was shit, nobody wanted it. Now they’ll put anything out there just to hit content and seo targets.

I’m still in love with journalism, but it isn’t what it was. Social media has made it lose value which is saddening and worrying because we are consuming so much garbage that, a lot of the time, isn’t fact checked to see if it’s even true.

PR is great money and I still think a journalism degree is a good one - you can take so much from it and factor it into a few different careers. It’s interesting and thought provoking. My advice would be to ensure that your social media knowledge is shit hot as this is where most writing opportunities lie these days.

I thought it was a mad idea, but my friend retrained as a journalist at 29 and has had a successful career on the nationals - so it can happen - but it’s rare, and you have to work very hard.

I’d say your DC should go for it, but be prepared to move in to PR/in house comms/press officer roles within 5-10 years if journalism doesn’t work out - the pay and pension will be far better.

I work for a local paper and have done for more than 29 years.

I love every day. Absolutely adore it. I wouldn’t do anything else. There are still some really good local newspapers out there with proper journalists doing vital work. We don’t chase clicks at my paper. We don’t even really have any targets. Good local journalism is still celebrated here, as it is at most papers.

Things to consider are that the pay is shit. Just above minimum wage for a trainee. The hours can be long but tbh most younger reporters go home at 5.30 and you don’t hear from them till the next morning, whatever news breaks on their patch overnight. Good for them, they know where their boundaries are etc, but I’m never happier than stood at a police cordon at midnight. You do need to be able to drive and you need to learn to put up with hideous abuse online. A journalism degree is a good one to have. There are so many transferable skills and if your child doesn’t like it they can always go into PR 💀🤣

I work in a related industry and thank my lucky stars I didn't go into print journalism - jobs have been decimated in the last couple decades, and the pay is mostly awful.

So unless s/he has real killer ambition, or has plans for a v niche career (science / health / tech maybe) then no I wouldn't

No I wouldn't encourage it at all. There's practically no such career anymore.
Marketing/copywriting/learning how to do fancy things with AI might be somewhat better I think it's impossible to make a decent living now as a traditional media journalist, even with decades of experience.

My DH started out in print magazines in 2005 and after a decade of poorly-paid grind moved into PR/Comms and then onto other things. He did really love it at the time.

There are local papers out there - I actually work for one (not a writer). If anyone has seen After Life - the representation of the Gazette is spot on. Except for Ricky Gervais having his own personal photographer to follow him round.

No. The industry has changed and there are no jobs .

I have NCed in case this is identifiable. I edit a monthly print magazine.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that the large majority of print journalists work for titles that you've never heard of. They are not staffing the Times foreign desk. They are writing up press releases about a new range of U-bends for Plumbing Trades Gazette, or they're profiling the CEO of a small chain of hair salons for Beauty Industry Insider.

In other words, there's still a surprising number of print magazines around, but most of them are business-to-business publications that you won't ever see in Smiths (or TG Jones or whatever it's called today). Take a look at the website of the Mark Allen Group for example. They publish a few consumer magazines, such as Gramophone. But nearly all of them are very specialised B2B titles: Business Jet Interiors International, Stadia (incorporating Turf), Pigs Tomorrow, Filtration + Separation, Ramp Equipment News, and so on.

I am fortunate to work for a consumer title that has weathered the last ten years better than most. We haven't lost any staff and our heads are still just about above water. But it's a fragile existence and we certainly aren't recruiting.

B2B journalism isn't generally well paid and can involve a fair bit of travel. You won't be uncovering the next Watergate, or championing hot young fashion designers in setting the trends for the next quarter. But you would still get to exercise some journalistic skills such as getting a good interview out of someone who's unused to the public eye.

I was a journalist throughout the 90’s and early noughties, and have a lot of friends who are still journalists. I wouldn’t recommend it as a career for a young person starting out. It is incredibly badly paid these days, and AI is having a huge impact on the industry. However, I also think that if you have a burning desire to do something you should go for it - it’s just not an easy path. I know incredibly experienced journalists who are really struggling to get enough work to make ends meet

When I started my journalism career 20 years ago, it was brilliant. We were putting out huge papers, we couldn't keep up with the calls and emails coming in, photographer diary was always busy and the advertising revenue was at an all time high.

I cut my teeth writing ad features, speaking to local people about matters which were important to them and on first name terms with the local police.

I chose to stay in local print journalism as I had children shortly after graduating and needed to be close to home for childcare etc.

I have since reached the highest post - with very little of a pay increase, just a heavier workload and more responsibilities 😞

I wouldn't encourage anyone into the industry today - stories we used to cover as a local paper are no more - people just tweet or post on social media tagging the company they're having issues with.

We are putting out a weekly paper with half the number of staff we had two years ago, still covering council meetings, court (as well as inquests) sport, advertising features and we only get TOIL for any evening or weekend hours worked.

We have to deal with press officers rather than go direct to source (such as police, fire service, electric/gas companies) people are nearly afraid to give you a quote for a story,

We are almost all WFH since covid, precious little communication (lol for the business we're in) sales figures have slumped, we have hardly any advertising revenue coming in and it won't be a shock if we're facing redundancies soon....

Sorry to sound so negative, but that's a realistic round-up of print newspaper today.

It was the best career 25+ years ago.

Is law an option? Then doing some writing.