Dear budding journalist,

3 Responses to Dear budding journalist,

1. Mara says:

   February 9, 2015 at 9:00 pm

   I am your age (well, one year older) and my salary is $15,000 less than the job I had in 2008. I make the same wages as a postal carrier. Our newsroom is less than 1/3 the size it was in the golden age. I have been giving this advice to high schoolers job shadowing since about 2000, even before I was laid off three times. So thank you for saying it to your larger audience!
2. James says:

   February 15, 2015 at 12:09 pm

   After working as a journalist for four years and recently graduating with bachelor of journalism, reading this was actually rather sobering and refreshing. Getting a foot in journalism is damn hard, almost impossible if you have the gall to ask for a pay.

   What I find a bit ironic is that we’ve been told over the last few years, especially at university, that the world needs more journalists. Yet no-one seems eager to hire anyone or even slip them a few dollars for a write-up.

   It just doesn’t add up, nor make any sense. If there is such a need for journalists, why are so many journalists being sacked, and why did we see so many this-is-why-I-left-journalism-and-happy-about-it articles the last two years? Not to mention that more and more journalists, especially journalism graduates, end up doing PR instead of journalism.

   I don’t regret doing a degree in journalism. I had fun, but from an economical pov it was probably rather foolish.
3. Giulia Merlo says:

   February 20, 2015 at 4:12 pm

   Dear Mr. Salmon,

   I am a young italian freelance journalist. I’m white, I’m upper-middle class, I also have an accent which makes me sound cooler than I am. Probably, my deficit is that I am female.

   Your article made me really think. I have a law degree and soon I am going to face the choice between becoming a lawyer or making professional journalism my main goal in life.

   I am now attending a School Of Journalism in my Country, surrounded by young journalists as myself, trying to make a career out of it.

   I’ll let you know if I’ll chose the profession of my childhood dreams or a job that will give me a middle-class lifestyle.

   In the meantime, I translated in italian your brilliant article and I ask for permission to publish it on my blog, giving you all the credit and, of course, outlining the link of the original version of it.

   I really think that it would be a precious point of view for the italian debate over this career.

   best regards,
   Giulia Merlo

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