oh those wacky college kids

That is true. As someone who is looking for a job, I've already sent resumes to five states and have been told the same thing by every paper: Thanks for the interest, we're not hiring/in a hiring freeze/laying people off, but I'll keep your stuff on file, good luck.

Maybe if you look to cast your net more broadly, beyond the two or three countries you've had your eye on, the situation doesn't look so bleak? It certainly can't be two or three newspapers, not when I'm 0-for-110 and climbing. The CU students can't all be that much better than I am.

 

i so disagree. folks who aren't journalists look for positive reinforcement of their beliefs when they search the internet for news.

"true reporting" is becoming more and more scarce and usually only pisses off the masses.

 

How do you know?
There are not going to be any avenues for news. Papers are dead.
As far as the democracy thing ... somebody posted that article about nobody covering
the cops beat correctly anymore. This business is dead; blogs, however and fluff are alive

 

How do you define "alive"? BLOGGERS!!! aren't making any money, either. They just don't care.

 

I don't buy that at all. Papers might be dying, but who said papers are the only avenue for news? There will be avenues for news. Maybe (probably) they won't be newspapers as we know them, but they will exist. This business model is dead, but this business is anything but. I understand cynicism in these times, but your level of cynicism is just ridiculous.

 

identify your target audience, please.

 

Perhaps the cynicism is because after almost a decade of being promised a new business model is coming, it's here. And it's 20 percent of the former staffing levels, lower pay and worse (if any) benefits while churning out mediocre web-based copy.

And I have strong doubts that this business model will really work.

 

I do, too, and I do understand some cynicism. Just not cynicism taken to the degree of there never being a market for news again. That just isn't true.

I certainly understand cynicism about the business model or the management of newspapers, but I don't understand complete cynicism concerning the public's desire for news. If I remember right, more people are reading what we write than ever before. The problem is that we aren't making any money off of that because we give it away for free.

 

I'm constantly told about how lucky I am to get a job out of school. I know how lucky I am. I think something was aligned in the stars for me to be hired out of school. It didn't take me long after I graduated to realize that the degree was a bad idea. The kids are following a dream, but sadly their dream has very few options. I'm well-versed in the multimedia aspects, but does it mean I got the job? Nope. I got lucky.

Why else would I think about a career in health? Because the industry is evolving and evolving quickly and we don't know how to fully catch up.

Making matters worse, the pool of qualified applicants are being saturated with each layoff cycle and paper closing down. I was warned how competitive this industry is, and people told me that I would have to get lucky. So the message is passed on — get lucky or prepare to teach or do something else.