Forbes reports that while news agencies across the U.S. are slashing budgets and payrolls, journalism schools are actually filling up.
Who knew?
Says Forbes about J-School applications:
Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains.
Hot diggity dee.
MY QUESTIONS
So this begs a few questions from me to students:
1) Do you believe successful careers in journalism are still possible?
2) Do you have plans for supporting yourself on the salary of a journalist?
3) Are you ignoring the lack of money in the journalism industry? Do you care?
4) Why are you going into journalism?
NOW MY ADVICE
As if you asked for it.
If you’re a j-schooler, that’s excellent. The world needs more journalists who can do good work.
That said, while you’re in school I’m going to give you some words of wisdom I wish somebody pounded into my head: take a few business classes. Take an HTML class. Take a photo and video class. Write a blog and try to monetize it. Don’t let yourself graduate with just a standard j-school degree. Soak up everything you can while you’re in school.
——-
I’m definitely interested in your thoughts though – why choose journalism over other more lucrative majors?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This is excellent advise to those going into the field. I’d be the last to kill your dreams, but keep your eyes open. You have to have the skills to make this career lucrative.
J-schooler not scrounging up every brain cell available to them to figure out the best and most sustainable means of holding onto their careers are going to be in for a tough few years, if not decades.
While the swift decline of (American) newspapers is, to put it mildly, troubling for our immediate prospects, this hardly means that journalism as a concept is a dead end. It does, however, mean that we’re dangerously short on anything resembling precedent to work out our career paths with – not even our teachers and mentors can give a coherent or detailed answer on what to expect from and how to deal with the next few years.
As a future jschooler next year at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I think that honestly, this is one of the most exciting times in journalism.
I think careers in journalism are going to be available, but they are going to be different than what they are today. New media and convergence journalists are going to be in high demand in the coming years. While newspapers may dwindle down, people are going to have to get their news some other way, whether it be twitter, blogs, online news sites, or something which has yet to emerged. And even if journalism jobs are not in demand, I will be able to use my skills acquired in Jschool towards other industries, if it comes to that.
Sure the news industry looks a bit bleak, but one can’t deny their own passions even in a bad economy. Journalism makes me, and thousands of others, extremely happy and fulfilled. And my generation, the one that grew up connected to the computer, will ultimately be in charge of the future of journalism. And to me, that’s mind-blowing. It’s amazing. It’s thrilling…And I’m honored to be a part of it.
I go to Syracuse and agree with the above post. It makes me really sad that we’re slowly losing the good old days of thriving newspapers, but I’m also excited that the door is wide open for redefining journalism.
It’s probably wrong of me to automatically devalue the opinion of an “internet marketing scientist” who misuses “begging the question” (see http://grammartips.homestead.com/begging.html) but I fear I can’t help myself.
That said, I think journalism as a profession is going to become more like fiction writing; many people will do it part-time or as a hobby, fewer and fewer will make a living off it, but a tiny number will become very wealthy and successful indeed.
i can understand where the concerns come in, and i also advocate the idea of following your passions. for me, as a 26-year-old j student, i think i can firmly say that i have a grasp on what the situation is and i think the advice given in this post is seriously valuable, and touches on the beginnings of how media is evolving. i’ve seen plenty of hypothetical solutions to news organizations monetizing their content, most of which center around ad content. it’s worth noting, however, that newspapers and magazines are not the only industries that rely on advertising for the majority of their revenue. while it would be ignorant to argue that loss of ad revenue isn’t the largest problem facing current media business models, i still get the feeling that there are other more intrinsic problems with these companies that go beyond mere monetization. not all publications are folding because of the current situation. on the same token, many blogs based on advertising are becoming excitingly profitable. broadcast news is changing in many similar ways, as well. as things change there will most likely be great opportunities for advancement, and hopefully all of us j-schoolers will be able to sit on the front line when things start to finally turn around.
if any of us could sit here and make a solid argument of what’s wrong with print, and analyze what needs to be done to fix it, we’d be better off just keeping it to ourselves and working out a solution for these huge companies that would make us exclusive millionaires, rather than blogging about it. i think people on that level of thinking are probably aware of that fact, as well.
personally, i find it to be a mandatory part of career planning, especially in media jobs, to strongly consider graduate school and to develop some sort of expertise outside of just “journalism”. specializing in technology, politics, food, business, etc, seems to lend a lot of credibility to eligible writers that are on the market for a job, and without education beyond just a standard journalism degree, i wouldn’t want to have to face the music the way it sounds today. this may change in the future, but for now it seems to be the way of the road, and i’m very glad you point that out in the post.
great post, thanks for it :)
Question: “Do you believe successful careers in journalism are still possible?”
Tim: “Oh yeah, definitely.”
Question: “Do you have plans for supporting yourself on the salary of a journalist?”
Tim: “Yep, USAToday Sports Editor in the future…or at least I hope so, and think so.”
Question: “Are you ignoring the lack of money in the journalism industry? Do you care?”
Tim: “Yeah, for the most part I am ignoring the lack of money, because when you think about it too much it’s too discouraging, and when people talk about it at conferences it never gets past the yeah-this-industry-is-in-the-dumps. It never talks realistically about solutions…I believe there will always be jobs out there for the best in the industry, and I plan to be the best. So ignoring the short-term woes seems to be the best option, so that I can focus on simply making myself the best journalist possible, and then worrying about finding a job later on…It used to be easier to ignore it though, because my career was far off. But now as I enter my senior year in college it’s getting closer and closer. It’s still in the back of my mind, but it is starting to worry me more. Nevertheless, that worry is about the short-term problem of finding a job right away out of college, I’m not concerned in the long-term, because I plan to succeed.
Question: “Why are you going into journalism?”
Tim: “Because journalism is what I’m passionate about, and I’ve decided it’s more important to pursue a career you enjoy instead of one where you’re always looking at the clock….I plan to be the best, so going I think that also plays a factor in that the elite journalists will still find jobs.”