Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yea Journalism has take a hit. The internet killed Print Media. And like Guineas said, there are tons of sources to choose from. Hundreds, thousands. Any topic you could be interested has more news sources than you can count.
Course, if you REALLY want to be a Journalist, go for it. The world of Journalism is both shrinking and expanding, and there will (or should) always be a need for good Journalist.
Course, again, I don't see a lot of jobs of interviewing famous people being available. It's like people want to go into say, Video Game Journalism so they can play video games all day. There are like, 5 of those jobs in the whole world.
I know a lot of journalists from my former job in public TV news. Degrees meant nothing except for maybe giving some expertise in a field. However, the science film producer (NOVA, Discovery) did get a degree in English. The columnist/editor/translator had an education degree from some tiny state college. The major writer (several books and many articles) had a PhD in history and was a professor before moving to journalism, and did take a master's in Journalism at Columbia before fully making the switch.
The editor/arts writer in New Orleans dropped out of English in his first semester at an L.A. state college, and has been a working writer his whole life (arts magazine editing, freelance articles, mystery books with awards).
Other people went into grant-writing (public TV, etc.) or independent film-making. Degrees were hit and miss, and some not at all.
I got my then-journalism job with two years of college, a year and a half of blue-collar jobs, and acing a simple newswriting test (flunked by some 50 English majors).
I don't know if college programs can set you up with some useful connections or internships, but I do think relying on college as an entry into the field is misguided. It's one of the few fields that doesn't require or use degrees very much.
I suggest reading some good journalism- a lot- like non-fiction writing (travel, history) and the NY Times in some form, and writing writing writing.
Most people at my paper when I worked in the field were English majors. Even our sports writers.
That's funny -- almost everyone I worked with had a journalism degree, or journalism concentration within a communications degree. Some had English or education degrees, and a few even had no degree at all.
It was the 80s, though -- everyone had a journalism degree. We all wanted to be the next Carl Bernstein, and wound up writing about sewer plants and education budgets instead. I found out I preferred it that way; I felt more connected to the community.
I LOVED working for community weeklies...I always favored feature writing (our bread and butter) over hard news reporting...much more fun writing to me, and much more my niche. Because of this emphasis on human interest, our company steered more away from hard news types...they were less likely to be happy with the type of writing that was our main focus. But we loved it. And the opportunities to be crusading types definitely did come up as well, as they do anywhere. There are always controversial issues, regardless of the market.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
