Are you a journalist?

audradanielle

What do you like/dislike about the industry?

bluefox9er

i'm a photojournalist ( part time)...not sure if i could be a print journo, but I'm obsessed with capturing images that show the world..ive travelled all over the middle east ( afghanistan,iraq etc), wimbledon tennis, soccer world cup in south Africa, countless safaris in Africa, India and doing a trip photographing the Hell's Angels next year in Northern California. I am very lucky the boss in my ''day job'' is so generous with my leave allowances, as every photoshoot is the opportunity of a lifetime to me.

Im not really ''in'' the industry, but getting in is HARD,HARD,HARD and if i'm to be honest, my current salary is easily 10 times more than anything my photography pays me...but I am lazy and should do more paid work and not turn down the offers I do get for weddings etc :-(

LATeagno

My degree is in English, but I minored in journalism. I've worked for newspapers and online news sites, but I now work for myself doing freelance copywriting, journalism and graphic design (what my other education venture covered).

IMHO, traditional journalism is a dying industry. When I got my first reporting position right out of college (which was at a medium-sized daily newspaper), I made $12.75 an hour and worked an insane schedule. I moved up from there to a bigger daily and was given a more specific beat and a $3.50 an hour raise to $16.25 per hour, but was cut to part time along with half the production staff and was eventually laid off with several other writers.

Print publications are being taken over by the internet, which allows any Jane Doe to be a "journalist." People have thrown AP Style out the window and correct grammar and spelling are following closely behind. It seems that people just don't care as much about the nitty gritty details of professional journalism anymore.

Now that I work for myself, I do a variety of writing tasks in addition to my graphic/web design work. I generally enjoy it more, but my hours are still very sporadic. However, I work from home 80% of the time, so I can't really argue.

caveats

I worked for nearly 5 years at a daily metropolitan newspaper that, at its peak, had a Sunday circ of ~95k. I joined in early 2003 and got out in late 2007. I was a copy editor and layout designer for all of that time, and a columnist for part of it.

I loved the people in the industry. The ones that had been around for a while were passionate about what they were doing, and I loved that at my paper, our beat reporters strove daily to remain fair and objective no matter how controversial the topic or how local/national the stage.

I hated the fact that it is an industry slow to change. I don't think it's a dying industry; people will always need the latest news, no matter what. I think the media by which news is delivered, absorbed, and shared is changing much, much faster than the people in the journalism industry (and I include all journalism media here, such as print, digital and TV) can adapt to, much less get ahead of. I dislike the low barrier of entry into "journalism" these days, agreeing with LATeagno about the dismal lack of adherence to grammar, much less any type of style guide. (Heck, while I favor AP, I wouldn't even mind if a newbie blogging journalist started with "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" ... I guess that's how far MY standards have fallen. )

I also dislike the fact that because the industry is slow to change, if you want to lead any type of revolution, you'll have to do it on your own. That's why, politics aside (because I don't agree with hers), I admire Arianna Huffington for showing how it can be done one way. I also admire the editors at "Fast Company" for showing how it can be done another way (they left the very traditional "Harvard Business Review" to start up "Fast Company"). In both cases, passion and smart direction trumped "the old guard" -- and for me, the old guard in print newspaper journalism was about as old as it got -- and I love it. I love how these people were able to see the way to effective and improved changes within their niches, and I hope to see more of it, even though I'm no longer in journalism professionally.