One of the biggest challenges facing me (and presumably others in my situation) on trying to enter the print journalism field is the dreaded "3-5 years of experience required." Almost every job I apply for stipulates that I must have already gotten my feet wet somewhere else, but I plug away, hoping that someone will be wowed by my raw talent and take a chance on me anyway. It almost seems as if getting an entry-level job as an astronaut would be easier than getting an entry-level job at a paper: this makes sense, though, from a business perspective; an organization that is roughing it financially would be hard pressed to invest time and money into training a kid fresh out of college when they could hire an old pro and reduce costs. Unfortunately, sound business practices leave people like me out in the cold, living under a bridge and performing sexual favors for food money (not really).
I should preface my gripe by admitting that I took no internships while in school, so I really have nobody to blame here but myself. I tried to get an internship at a television conference out in Las Vegas, but that fell through. As television is my passion and my eventual goal is to host The Tonight Show (for longer than seven months), I felt that looking for a newspaper internship would not be helpful for my eventual career goal.
The way I see it, in lieu of actual newsroom experience, the actual news stories I had to write in my upper-level journalism classes should count for something. I had a deadline, I had to submit a pitch, a rough draft, and make the necessary changes. I had good stories and bad stories, but always got them in on time. I interviewed small business owners, community organizers, professors, and athletic coaches. I wonder if attaching the syllabus from some of my college classes with my resume would show prospective employers how much "experience" I really have?
For those of you who are reading this blog and want to pursue journalism as a career once you graduate, I cannot stress enough the importance of internships. If a prospective employer sees you have been around the block at least once, you instantly gain an advantage over applicants such as myself, who have great academic credentials but nary a lick of "real world" experience. Consult the career services department at your school and see if they can help you get placed in an internship that will give you experience with a real newsroom environment (along with pay, if you get lucky). You will not, in all likelihood, be offered a job right after you get your diploma, but having an internship or two on your resume certainly makes you a more promising candidate.
-Justin
Can you still consult your job placement office as an alumni? They might be able to set you up with an internship...you might have to hold down another job for a while to make ends meet but it might get you going in the right direction no?
ReplyDeleteMost of the internships I've looked at are only for students who are still enrolled. Besides, I checked the school's career network thing and there isn't anything for my field.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with internships, however, is that often interns are abused by 'employers'. They're paid nothing - sometimes not even partial travel expenses - but are worked like dogs. I've heard some real horror stories.
ReplyDeleteA friend of a friend did an internship at a fashion magazine; they were keeping her there until 11pm and expecting her at 8am the next morning. She spent most of her time in a cupboard, ordering props for photoshoots.
A friend of mine enrolled in an internship at a news website run by a huge US news network. She applied because the advert promised a job at the end of the internship. On the first day, the editorial staff denied there had ever been a job on offer and said they couldn't understand why the advert said anything to the contrary. They paid about half of her travel expenses for the month, leaving her hundreds of pounds out of pocket at the end of the internship.
So while internships will gain you experience, it's not always useful or relevant experience. You might get a magnificent insight into the world of journalism - or you might gain experience in making cups of coffee for editors, or experience in sitting in a cupboard ordering props.
It's scandalous that in the news world you're expected to spend months on end working for free before you'll ever be considered for a paid postion. What other industry does that happen in?
Internships allow editors to squeeze cheap/free labour out of desperate graduates. Many publications use rolling internships as a permanent source of free labour.
The practice also prevents those from working class backgrounds from breaking into the industry. Only those rich enough to work for free for months can afford to partake in internships. Consequently, you end up with an industry that's supposed to fight for the common man being populated by elitists.
Alongside nepotism, which is rampant in the world of journalism, this obsession with experience and therefore internships is one of the biggest problems facing journalism graduates.
Charles Thomson
Wow Charles, thank you for that info.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think journalism grads like I should do in order to get into the field?
I'm a journalism grad myself - I only graduated myself in September 2009. I was lucky enough to have existing contacts at various publications so I've been able to scrape a living from freelance gigs. I'm becoming fairly well known by my salary doesn't necessarily reflect that.
ReplyDeleteMy advice would be to do the following:
-Write for free in order to bolster your portfolio of published work and make contacts
-Try to carve yourself a niche that will make people seek you out
-Create an online presence. I have a website, a blog, a twitter page and a YouTube account. The last three all lead back to the website.
I wrote more about this subject here:
http://charlesthomsonjournalist.blogspot.com/2010/10/all-way-back-in-february-i-announced.html