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Anyone not have a journalism background?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Mooninite, Jan 31, 2007.

  1. Photographer

    Photographer New Member

    I just want to say I am encouraged by those of you that made it. I have no college or training and am starting to write now so I have some stores to accompany my photos. My work is pretty weak now but I hope to learn and maybe someday I will offer something to critique.
     
  2. Dan Hickling

    Dan Hickling Member

    Didn't go to college...but I have been an autoworker (six years), Gospel music promoter (15 years), among other things....am now in my 13th year as a full time freelance sports writer....not sure what I'll do when I grow up...but thankful for every day I get to do what I'm doing now...
     
  3. sartrean

    sartrean Member

    I was a quad-major back in my college days, meaning I was technically an "International Studies" major, but my major fields were history, economics, philosophy and English.

    I took 30 or more hours in each field, had to to get that degree. I graduated with honors, and yes I'm bragging because that has been the pinnacle of my life. I've been on a downward spiral since; I haven't accomplished jackshit since.

    I was a columnist at the college daily for two years. That gig didn't pay anything because back in the 80s, having a byline was considered "pay."

    After college, I went back home and got a job covering high school sports a weekly about 50 yards down the road. That job didn't pay a livable wage and I had to move on.

    I worked at weeklies, bi and tri weeklies, dailies (big and small) and I briefly worked in P-R. I've worked in news briefly, but mostly I've been a sports writer.

    It's been my experience, and I may be wrong here, that most J-school majors don't get a very good understanding of the world while in school.

    When I was in school years ago, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and that was all the rage at my college daily. The conservatives that worked there liked to beat their chests and say with all seriousness, "let's nuke those a-rab bastards..."

    A doltish editor at the college daily said, "we can't do that because the Soviets will get pissed for losing a customer."

    I interjected, informing the dolt that the Soviet Union no longer existed and they were not going to intervene in the mid east because the Russian states had too many problems of their own. And if anything, I told the dolt that the United States has supplied Saddam Hussein with enough weapons to fight Iran for eight years and to invade Kuwait. I called it "chickens coming home to roost."

    I told the other idiots that nuking Iraq would not be an alternative because nuclear fallout travels to other nations via the jet stream and other natural weather processes. Also it would endanger the massive buildup of U.S. forces in the area.

    I made a convincing argument for my conclusions, and after some discussion a fifth-year editor asked me how I knew all this stuff. And I asked her "and how do you NOT know this stuff?"

    That's just one example of how uninformed the J-school majors were back in the late 80s/early 90s.

    But even today, at my last shop they hired a reporter straight out of Loyola, armed with his laptop and a master's in journalism. This guy had no fucking clue how to do anything. He was expecting paste-up, he did not know the difference between Circuit and Chancery courts, he wrote one-sided political stories, he even asked "who should I contact when doing a story about flu season?"

    Uh...a doctor? The health department??

    But this Loyola grad is a bad example because he's just an idiot all around. He'd be an idiot if he had a Ph.D. in economics or philosophy or chemistry or anything. He is the most incompetent person I've ever met.

    In the last few years, I did an unscientific poll of recent J-school grads I know. Every one of them, about 5 for 6 who all went to different universities, said that their profs were way the fuck out of touch. One said that the head of the J-school dept at his school not once mentioned the internet and newspaper web sites in the four classes this guy took under the prof.

    And paste-up is still being taught.

    All of the recent J-school grads said they feel like they deserve a refund from their school because they were cheated.

    Sorry if that's brutal, but that's been my experience. I've also met some very informed and very intelligent journalists who studied it in college. But they tend to be way older than me and they also tend to despise the popularity of the internet. Wonder why?
     
  4. Platyrhynchos

    Platyrhynchos Active Member

    I've been a surveyor; worked in a salt mine; drove a propane truck; worked at a state correctional facility; and was a warehouse manager.
    But, I do have a B.A. in English.
    After the warehouse went tits up, the local newspaper publisher gave me a call.
    Been in the biz 13 years now.
     
  5. Del_B_Vista

    Del_B_Vista Active Member

    I started far from journalism. My background:

    -- Sports editor of HS yearbook (never occurred to me to consider that a job option)
    -- B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
    -- Five-plus years in the Navy driving submarines around after getting essentially a crash-course nuke engineering masters in six months.
    -- Started stringing for hometown newspaper after I got out. Knew the prep coordinator, eventually began working part-time on paper's fledgling Web site.
    -- Got a full-time gig at smaller paper down the road, worked there 18 months.
    -- Moved back to full-time gig at first paper, in sports (minor league hockey, NFL, major college beats), then in news/business (transportation) now back to the Web site.

    The only thing my lack of journalism degree keeps me from doing is teaching, I think. I'm not sure schools would recognize my Navy postgraduate training as a masters to get my foot in the door as a professor.
     
  6. Jones

    Jones Active Member

    I have a B.A. in PoliSci and a M.Sc. in Urban Planning. When I was doing my Masters, I wrote exactly four stories (all band profiles, just so I can go to concerts for free) for the college newspaper. Through a long series of happy accidents, I got a job at the National Post in Toronto, which was just starting up and filling holes with cheap hires. The editor-in-chief didn't believe in journalism school. In fact, I think he kind of looked down on applicants from j-schools, as though they knew nothing about the world. That being said, it was a minor miracle that I got that job. (When he asked for writing samples, I actually gave him my thesis, because I didn't have much else.) And I recognize how lucky I've been since. Since graduation, I've had two jobs: my first one, and my current one.

    I think the one thing J-school might give you is the confidence that you belong in the field. I still feel like an imposter, like I could get fired anyday, and I'd be put in my rightful place, drawing trees and buildings from an overhead perspective.

    I'm still trying to get over the fact that there really are salt mines. I just thought it was an expression.
     
  7. Taylee

    Taylee Member

    Education degree. Got a job as a copy editor, became SE in seven years. Last hire was a business major.
     
  8. writing irish

    writing irish Active Member

    My schooling was in English. Sometimes I wish I'd had more journalistic training, but between experience and self-educating over the years, I'm fine.

    Can't generalize about journo majors...I've known admirable geniuses and astounding morons with J-degrees from reputable and medicore schools alike.
     
  9. henryhenry

    henryhenry Member

    journalism is a state of mind - it probably starts in the womb.
    if you were a curious kid - always asking why and how - poking your nose into things - reading eclectically - social by nature - and not too self-centered - you were a journalist-in-embryo.
     
  10. Obtained my undergrad degrees in Business Admin (Management w/ Marketing Minor)
    Working on a masters in public administration.

    Worked part-time covering preps at a local daily.

    May try journalism as a full-time job, I just didnt want to be stuck working for 21k a year with a journalism degree forever.
     
  11. Kaylee

    Kaylee Member

    No real formal journalism experience here. [Cue crowd: "THAT EXPLAINS A LOT!"]

    Graduated with an English/P.E. double major from a school nobody's heard of. So far, I think I'm the only one on our staff without a journalism degree. Hell, I may be the only one at our paper without a journalism degree. Plus, degrees from Missouri and Syracuse are well represented within our ranks, as if I didn't need more of an inferiority complex.

    No sports background either...my first journalism job was as a municipal reporter.

    And my boss wonders why I'm so uptight. ::)
     
  12. ARD

    ARD Member

    No degree or journalism experience here. I was a sophomore majoring in marine biology when I saw an ad for a sportswriter in my hometown paper while I was there on break. So I quit college to work at a 15K daily in 1980, did sports and news writing and sports and news layout, went to a 100K daily desk job for a while, then a 400K daily. Now I'm at a 160K daily, still on the desk. Wouldn't trade that time on the small daily for anything; that's what hooked me on the business (it sure wasn't the money). Many of the best people I've known, both writers and deskers, have no journalism degree, and many have no degree of any kind.
     
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