Any journalists - careers advice

[LittleEsme]

DD wants to pursue a career as a journalist. Is there anyone here who can give her any advice? What did you study, where did it take you etc.

She's in Year 13 and looking at different Uni courses now.

Bump

Sorry, I can't actually help but I think you'll find that most of MN hates journalists.

They seem to think that all they do is work for the Daily Mail and use MN threads for their work.

Ever since AI/Chat GPT a lot of my journalist friends have moved into other areas, or do mainly content creation/checking chatGPT outputs, some write books, very interesting, but it's much harder to sustain a career than it used to be, I think. I'm not sure the old-fashioned journalist exists in the quantities needed to make it a good career- any journalists disagree?

I'm not saying don't do the degree, I'm saying perhaps be realistic and widen the ideas around what would lie ahead. People do still make money from writing.

I was a journalist on weekly and then a regional daily paper.
I got my break aged 19 following A' levels after doing weeks of work experience on newspapers (plus a few months as a temp at the tax office to earn some money). It wasn't very common to go to uni then, certainly not among my group of friends. I did distance learning and shorthand lessons followed by a three month block release course and exams to qualify as a senior journalist.
I think journalists these days are probably not as grounded in the basics of local and national government, law etc, as we were back then, but are probably more multi skilled in terms of social media and recording and uploading videos, reports and interviews.
From journalism I moved to a police press office, which I absolutely loved, then after a career break am now a GP receptionist. Some of my journalist friends stayed on newspapers or moved into radio and TV, some went to PR agencies, or did internal or external communications for the emergency services, councils, colleges, and other big organisations, while a few ended up doing something completely different.
I think journalism degrees exist but also media studies degrees, and I have no idea which would be best.
I'm not sure if the National Council for the Training of Journalists still exists but try googling it.
A few newspapers used to run their own in-house training schemes, combining studying with on the job training, and this used to be another popular route in, but I suspect many of these have fallen by the wayside.
Let me know if I can help any further.

Ah, I found the National Council for the Training of Journalists website - nctj.com

Which sort does she fancy? Print, magazine or broadcast? It’s a great, fascinating career but the money’s even worse than when I started out…

What kind of journalism does your daughter want to do?

I’m a journalist working on a regional paper, mostly in crime and court coverage. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years but never moved on to a national mainly because I don’t want to work all hours!

If she wants to be a journalist the first thing she needs to do is read a LOT of online news from many sources. The Daily Mail (although much maligned on here) is the absolute master of getting page views so they’re a must. The BBC, Guardian, Times and other online publications like Byline Times are essential reading in terms of looking at things like house style and political slant.

Anyone who wants to be a successful reporter these days has to live and breathe it. There are people who’ve come up in several different ways in my newsroom but the best ones are the ones who just love it, and know the industry inside out. You also have to be very confident, happy to use the phone and ask very tough questions that might make you feel uncomfortable. Sounds like basic stuff but we currently have a junior reporter who has anxiety over using the phone. It’s just not compatible with the job.

The most obvious way of getting a foot in the door is by doing a journalism degree but it MUST have the NCTJ qualification as part of it, else she’ll have to do a post grad year. It’s the basic entry level for most newsrooms. Cardiff, Preston, City, Leeds Trinity and others all offer that.

It’s a shrinking industry so very competitive. She’ll need to be getting some work experience under her belt.

Honestly the pay is crap (really crap) and is very unlikely to get any better soon so she has to be prepared for that. But it’s the best job in the world. I can’t tell you how much I love it. It’s such good fun.

Im not a journalist so feel free to ignore my advice! Maybe a good idea would be to do a more general degree like English or history and politics so she reads widely in a variety of styles and gets a good grounding in the area she wants to report on and something to fall back on. If she still wants to be a journalist and do a qualification in if then she can do a masters. It keeps her options open a bit more iyswim.

I know a few people who trained as journalists. None of them are still working as journalists, they've moved into PR and communications, copywriting, content design etc. It's really not a sustainable career path these days but it obviously gives you transferable skills.

DH was a journalist but in a specialist area - pharmacy. His advice to anyone who says they want a career in journalism is ‘to write’. That is, have a blog on something you are interested in; send in articles to the local paper; get involved with the uni student paper. A friend’s daughter wanted to be a journalist and after uni accepted a job on Plumbers’ Weekly or something similar. It wasn’t her dream job but it gave her a start. Then she moved to a paper about module phones which gave her free mobile phones (to try out) and overseas travel. Then she moved into educational journalism with the DoE. I think it’s much harder to make a career now because of the internet and citizen journalism. Local papers are rapidly disappearing and that’s where people used to get started.

Yes this.

I think something like 65% of print journalist jobs have disappeared in the last 25 years - long before AI, the internet really clobbered it.

TV journalism has also been cut, and will be cut more, but there’s a bit more about right now and it’s a bit better paid.

I think there will always be some good work to be had but it’s now very competitive, as there is no middle ground to bob along in. It will really help her get a foothold in higher end places if you can support her to do free or low paid internships, massively unfair though that is.

It’s still a who you know industry so I’d go to a trad good reputation place - Oxbridge, London etc, get onto student papers and make contacts from there. Get as much work experience in the holidays as she can.

Do any academic subject for a degree that is of interest - history, politics, PPE, human geography are all good. A relevant language on the side - or even as a main degree - is obviously massively useful if she’s interested in foreign correspondence. There are quite a lot of science comms jobs about so a science degree is good too.

No great need to do a post grad, but city university did a good one, and imperial do a good science comms course.

If she’s ambitious and prepared to work hard, it’s worth a go, it she feels it isn’t working by her late 20s she can divert into things like PR and marketing. It gives you very useful soft skills, research and communication skills.

I think journalists these days are probably not as grounded in the basics of local and national government, law etc, as we were back then, but are probably more multi skilled in terms of social media and recording and uploading videos, reports and interviews.

This from @Papergirl1968 is very true.

Also what @Rocknrollstar says about writing.

@LittleEsme I would say I am a journalist (kind of); I have many years of newspaper and magazine experience as well as several years in PR and now write/edit for a living. (In the middle I was also a teacher for several years!)

I did a degree (not in journalism - no such thing then) and then got a job on my local paper. This is not really a route that exists now in any meaningful way. The careers for journalists now are much more around social media, videos and the like. A friend's ds has a decent career in that area - using an area of knowledge where he has great expertise.

OP you say she wants to be a journalist - what has she done? It's easier than ever before to get your writing published, And if nothing else, writers are still needed (unlike subs apparently).

So she could (and should)

• write reviews for the local paper or for any website that will take them - music, theatre, film
• write a blog
• write for or set up a school magazine or newsletter
• write pieces for any sport etc she is interested in - can she write about the local footy/athletic/swimming club? They would love to use her stuff on their website
• write pieces for the local newspaper website

Does she do any of this? If so then great. If not then sorry but maybe she doesn't really want to be a journalist. That sounds harsh and it's meant to. It's a tough career - it has always been badly paid but there did use to be jobs. Not so much now. More roles in PR and comms tbh.

If she does want to be a journo, the options she has are to take a uni course in journalism (Sheffield Hallam and Derby are a couple I know of that have some good outcomes) or to do a degree in something else that could be a specialism - such as science - scientific journalists are still needed and hums/MFL types like me cannot aspire to that.

what A levels is she doing? That may give a steer wrt degree. Thing is, if she does a general degree then she has other options; I do fear a journalism degree rather closes things down - tho of course ultimately it is still a degree.

OP, one practical point is that if your DD hasn't already done so, she should learn to drive.

She definitely needs an NCTJ. It’s required for any journalism job. I would suggest studying a journalism degree. She definitely needs to drive and learn shorthand.

I'm a journalist. I wouldn't want my daughter to do this job.
The hours are long, the pay is, to be frank, shit. Especially when starting out.
I've worked in this industry for almost 30 years, it's still struggling to make the shift to digital and too many fresh out of uni graduates get stuck doing 'churnsalism'

If she wants to go down a traditional news route and opts for a journalism degree, make sure it includes shorthand. Lots of journalism graduates don’t get it then really struggle to pass their seniors so they leave the industry in the first couple of years. It always seems a shame to have invested in a degree and then leave.

Agree about the writing but it also goes for other things e.g. if she wants to work in video, start doing that now, if she wants to do radio - work at local volunteer run radio or start a podcast, telly is harder but lots of companies will take you for work experience in the holidays if you really hammer away at it.

Most journalists are more comfortable IME with English, History, Languages etc - if she can get an edge by focussing somewhere more unusual. E.g. if she studied Russian or Arabic instead of French, or if she did something that makes her familiar with science, money or statistics. Journalists often get quite wibbly on things like economics, numbers generally in fact, science. And language skills are MASSIVELY useful.

I am a journalist but I started 25 years ago so I expect it's all different now. I did a degree in English literature (but the subject didn't really matter) and while at university was involved with college and uni newspapers, did work experience one summer on my local paper and wrote some music reviews for a local magazine. Then I did a three month postgrad magazine-focused training course, which doesn't exist anymore, (which did include shorthand but I was never confident enough to use it) and which was very focused on getting everyone a job by the end of the course. And then a glorious career in trade journalism

She definitely needs an NCTJ. It’s required for any journalism job. I would suggest studying a journalism degree. She definitely needs to drive and learn shorthand.

This is nonsense, I don't have an NCTJ, I don't have a degree in journalism, I can't drive and my shorthand is appalling, yet somehow I have been a journalist for 25 years.

I know a lot of journalists (and ex journalists) and agree with the comments about long hours and low pay.

Most people I know who do it work on a freelance basis around other freelance work or a full time job.

I work in marketing/copywriting and it’s an area that attracts quite a few ex journalists due to the transferable skills.

If she wants to do it I wouldn’t put her off, but would suggest it’s also worth exploring other roles that use similar skills e.g. marketing, copywriting, PR, communications.

I’m a national media journalist. Please don’t put your daughter off, it’s a wonderful career and it can pay well if you go up the ranks.
Many journalists nowadays have a journalism degree but I’d advise your daughter to choose one of the best universities for this - Cardiff, Sheffield etc.
Otherwise, she could pursue an English degree and then do a postgrad NCTJ.
The most important thing she needs is work experience - university student media, local newspapers and TV, applying to all the nationals and online. She needs lots and lots of exposure and chances to show what she can do. It’s tough to get in but it’s a truly great and varied career. No two days are the same.
If it doesn’t work out then you can branch off into corporate comms, PR etc. So no real dead ends. I wish her luck. And we’re not all awful by the way…

DS is at uni currently and aiming for this. He did a week's work experience for local online newspaper, which is part of the Mirror group. Got lots published. Also writes for uni paper. Gets press passes for football matches even! He knows he needs a portfolio. Planning to do an MA at Sheffield. If it doesn't work out he has plans B, C and D.

I was a a journalist for years and am currently back doing it on a freelance basis. I’ve hired and mentored lots of young journalists.

I wouldn’t necessarily bother with a journalism degree. Any traditional subject is fine. It helps to have a good general knowledge and something like a history or politics degree can be more useful here. The NCTJ is useful but not essential (I never did it). I don’t know how valuable shorthand is in the age of transcription software.

Curiosity, critical thinking and confidence are what you need and good relationship building skills. You need to learn to be sceptical, to ask questions, to spot patterns and connections and loopholes and tensions.

Being able to write clearly and quickly is important (although this can be learned), but I’d say writing isn’t ever the main part of the job. It’s about gathering and analysing information. The boundaries between print and broadcast are also getting increasingly blurred so if she can get comfortable shooting and editing video and audio, as well as writing, that will also help. And yes to understanding how journalists can use social media both for news gathering and content distribution.

I’d also add that there are new fields in journalism emerging, like data journalism and OSINT analysis. She might want to be aware of that if she wants to go into hard news.

But my top tip is, be interested in the world and interested in people.

I'm a retired journalist, worked for an international news and financial information agency for 25 years.
It used to run a yearly grad training programme and AFAICR looked for graduates with a 2.1 or 1st in subjects like PPE and modern languages. You had to have languages and if you were a native English speaker then two modern foreign languages were preferred.
They took about a dozen people on the programme each year and also considered people who had done a post-grad diploma in journalism at Cardiff University. (Other institutions might offer this now but at the time it was only Cardiff. ) Oxbridge and Russell Group universities were heavily favoured. Sorry, that's the way it was.
Meanwhile I would advise your DD to get heavily into in all kinds of student (and school) publications, (writing, reporting, interviewing, editing) plus broadcasting. If she can establish an online presence in areas where she wants to work, it would all be grist to the mill.
Being able to evidence her work will greatly help. It's highly competitive.
BUT keep the CVs / personal statements punchy, short and sweet.