Would you encourage a career in journalism?

Former journalist here - note the “former”. No, I would not encourage it at all.

I love the idea of a traditional journalist getting out and about for 'the story', but I've watched so many sitcoms/dramas which I'm probably basing it on, I actually think it wouldn't be as exciting as I imagine.

I would encourage them to chase their dream , as if they’re chasing a dream they’ll probably attain higher than if they don’t have a target. The process of chasing that dream (ie work experience, doing their own research into the industry, writing articles and trying to get them published), may ultimately bring them to that conclusion anyway. I don’t think you need to pop the dream.

Print journalism was going down the loo when I started out in the mid noughties.

Most people I know who started in that field have transitioned to PR or similar

journalist here - although news not magazine.
Im sad to say I wouldn’t encourage anyone to go into journalism. The industry is in a massive flux, with the decline of traditional print media, and this is being used to drive wages downward.
the work you do, versus the money you get, simply isn’t enough, especially for new entrants.
the hours can be long and unsocial too.
I’ve worked in this industry for three decades, and loved it at lots of the time. but it’s not what it was - and is absolutely nothing like the way the sector is portrayed in films or on tv

Journalism is often very low pay, very competitive to enter and pretty depressing once you're in, it's all about chasing clicks for a lot of outlets which can result in shallow work turned out very quickly that is generally not what people want when they envisage a career in journalism.

One of my children is studying it. I stayed completely out of their course and uni decisions. It actually sounds like a really interesting degree with many aspects which will transfer into a host of other careers than pure journalism.

I have a Journalism degree and of the 20 or so people on my course I still keep in contact with only 1 is working in Journalism and we qualified in the early naughties. Its not a completely worthless degree and it has helped a lot of us work in media and communications in one way or another but traditional newspapers/magazine journalism is not where it's at.