Aibu to want to retrain as a journalist?

[Whatser]

I've been interested in journalism (proper investigative stuff,not daily mail fodder) since I was a teen and have always regretted not pursuing it in college. Over the years, my career has meandered a bit, and I am now working in a semi-related field, where I do a lot of research into things that have happened/been documented in the past, and then produce reports based on these. However, I have a longing to investigate current events and get to the bottom of them, rather than document the past events, if that makes sense?

The leap from my current field wouldn't be huge, but it would involve a sizeable commitment and return to college.

My current work is freelance so I'm used to some amount of instability, and I'm generally good at making things/work happen for myself.

Has anyone retrained as a journalist, and if so, did it work out for you, or do you regret it?

I worked for newspapers for very many years.

They've laid so many good experienced journalists off and now use a lot more Uni leavers on much lower salaries.

There are many many journalists out there competing for roles.

You'll likely want to do an NCTJ-approved diploma then a trainee role where you'll get your NQJ qualification. These are what traditional media look for. They will ensure you have a good grounding in media law which is very important. And shorthand which is very useful.

However, I imagine it will be very hard to break into investigative journalism. Possibly have a look at The Bureau Local.

The industry generally is changing a lot at the moment, with local papers struggling for readers or clicks, getting to the nationals has never been easy but there are lots more small, independent publications which may give you a way in, especially if you're flexible/freelance. Pay and progression are generally poor, especially at local/independent organisations.

There isnt much work for Journalists now the majority of online and newspaper journalism is pretty much a copy and paste job and certainly not guaranteed steady income work if that's what you need.

I have a degree in Journalism from the many people I am still in touch with from my course 1 works in journalism and that is through connections in the entertainment industry and not needing a steady income or having any family commitments.

As print media is dying and with the huge surge in free online content (not to mention AI) it's probably not the best career move.
Most freelancers I know churn out fluff pieces and fillers for specialist publications - knitting, dogs, beauty.
You can be a citizen journalist without going the full Bob Woodward.

Journalism is a dying profession with few roles and entry level salaries are low.

Vanishingly few publications can afford a proper investigative team and one of them is the Daily Mail.

Your best chance of doing investigative journalism would be to start a blog and do it online yourself.

I’m going to be really frank here: don’t, under any circumstances, retrain as a journalist.

There are NO jobs going as an ‘investigative’ journalist. The role barely exists anymore. Every newspaper - and even some news websites - are laying off journalists. Senior, experienced journalists are being made redundant because their salaries (which often aren’t that great in the first place) are more than newspapers want to pay. 95% of journalism is little more than a copy and paste job nowadays. Most don’t have the resources to allow anybody to research for more than a couple of hours.

Retraining as a journalist would be a huge, huge waste of your time and money.

If the Daily Mail employed you, you'd be at the top of your game. It can be prestigious if you are a journalist to work there. It's the best selling and most influential paper and not all fodder and fluff.
Even to work on the Sun, it's similar.
Also if you freelance for any national paper, it opens the door for you to work on other nationals. Staff move from one to another all the time.

My husband is a journalist but is now an editor. I've seen the recruitment process he does over the years and being able to demonstrate you can write, the way he wants is the main thing. It really doesn't matter much what the applicant's degree is. His degree has nothing to do with journalism either. So things like writing your own blog and being involved in a university magazine, showing enterprise and putting yourself out there is more useful.
As the others are saying if you are able to get yourself a junior position the starting pay is low. There will be lots of young applicants who are able to take these low pays as they don't yet have big financial commitments. There are very few jobs about as unfortunately it's a dying industry.

Not the sort of job a newly trained journalist with no experience is walking into though is it.

The thing is OP, if you come on these boards and say you want to retrain in pretty much any career, people working in that career come on and say “don’t do it!” Teaching, nursing, law, countless threads…

If you are flexible in terms of income and being able to retrain then why not give it a go?

Massive difference in retraining as a nurse, teacher, lawyer etc… They’re all sustainable, progressive careers with stable salaries.
You only have to look at the facts of journalism to know it’s a very silly idea to retrain as one.

Be aware there are no jobs, there's no living. DH was a journalist before I met him. Thirty five years ago he was paid per article what some people are being offered today and he thought the pay was basic even then. A journalist friend now does jobbing work and says there's no writing involved. It's all syndicated sidebar of shame shit. She investigated a major incident years ago and now still investigates it for free, on behalf of the victims, in her spare time becauseit's no longer 'news' so no one will pay her to look into it.

The Daily Mail do have a graduate programme, but it’s massively competitive and you’ve got peanuts chance of getting on it unless you’ve got a prestigious MA in journalism. Not to mention the money to fund you through it. And, at the end of the programme, it isn’t guaranteed that they’ll take you on.

I don't want to sound patronising because I was once like you but the reality of working as a journalist is nothing like what you seem to think it is. It can be a great job but, for most journalists, it's pretty shitty. That's if you can even get a job these days. Honestly, they'll knock the enthusiasm out of you within a couple of months tops and then you'll be stuck in a shit job, on shit pay, often working shit hours wondering what the hell happened to your dreams!

there must be other forms of research you can do op

My DB was a journalist. Every year for the last 10 years they've all had to reapply for their jobs as redundancies loomed. It always happened just before Christmas. He even took on a 2nd day job (his newspaper job was late evening to early morning) so he at least had some income if he lost his job). He clung on to his job through many rounds until he finally caved under the uncertainty of it all and took redundancy.

So as others have said, it's a dying career. Most local newspapers are written by people who live and work I'm completely different regions and a lot of it is copy and paste crap. Can't imagine that there'd be much job satisfaction in that.

I was a journalist for years and while I don’t want to be a buzzkill I have to agree with the others. I loved it and had a blast but it’s changed beyond recognition.

Journalism has always been insanely competitive but now the whole business model is basically dying it’s almost impossible to make a decent living unless you have another source of income and can afford to work for a fairly low salary.

Investigative journalism is probably the subsector that is under the greatest pressure of all areas. There is a handful of people who make a living out of it and they are usually highly established professionals who have been doing it for decades.

I would say if you don’t need the money, go for it, it’s incredibly rewarding. But don’t go into it expecting to be able to make a living. It’s basically a hobby career nowadays.

There is an organisation called the Bureau of Investigative Journalists who do freelance investigative work who you could contact. They may have some pointers. But go in being prepared to work unpaid or virtually unpaid for some time.

Most "journalism" nowadays is online copy and paste clickbait content, and with the development of AI I doubt much of that will be done by humans in the future

Such a shame what’s happening to journalism. I nearly trained properly many years ago but ended up in publishing and now do something completely unrelated although my writing/proofreading skills come in handy! I did work on a local paper for a bit in the 90s and we were all local yokels - the office isn’t even there anymore and the online offering is shameful.
good luck with whatever you decide.

I work in Comms, which I have always done, but I have a number of colleagues and friends who have pivoted from journalism from proper wall street hacks through to those who worked on the glossies to local news, they are to a man, all doing something different now. 90% have gone into some form of Comms/ public affairs alongside the likes of me, the ones still in journalism are usually working in trade publications. Sadly journalism as a career seems to no longer exist

Investigative journalism is dead. Dead, dead, dead. All of journalism is in its death throes, but investigative journalism got finished off a while ago. You could be the second coming of Bob Woodward, and it wouldn't matter a bit because there no longer is an "anywhere" to get.

Nursing, medicine, teaching, all have big challenges. They're stressful jobs, and not overpaid. But they have real prospects for employment, they pay a stable salary, and they will be around for many years to come, none of which can be said of journalism.

Pp are right. On no account spend time and money retraining in the hopes of being an investigative journalist. It'll bring you only misery and debt. Get into citizen journalism as a hobby, or if you really feel you must investigate things and find out the truth as your work, you could contemplate joining the police or finding work in investigating insurance fraud, but to misquote the Armourer: this is not the way.

What they said.

Start a blog, write a book, research whatever you fancy - but do something else to make a living. Journalism is press releases, 'local' papers are national syndicated groups all publishing the same fluff, salaries have gone from abysmal to non-existant, all media wants 5-minute content (ideally free) - not a 10-part double page spread that took 3 years to research.

Try the Bylines network of newspapers. Completely independent, some very meaty investigative journalism going on, have the main paper plus various regional papers. They are always on the look out for freelance journos so definitely worth looking into.

You’d be mad to, I’m afraid. No jobs, an industry almost completely dead, and no money.

I have to broadly agree with the majority above - I left journalism for copywriting as the pay and job security is generally dire.

However, if you're in the north, take a look at the Manchester Mill, Sheffield Tribune and Liverpool Post. All independents with a strong focus on investigative pieces who are funded via membership rather than ads (i.e. not just clickbait content mills like Reach Group et al).