Is there any hope for young journalists?

If I was starting out in journalism right now, I think I'd actively stay away from newspapers altogether (not that you may have many options there anyway). Yes, they can provide good a training ground, but not like they used to, and you're tying yourself to a sinking ship.
I'd try and get into magazines, or freelance, or, ideally, get on with a smart web news operation, learn multimedia and/or database work from the get-go, and build my career around whatever comes next. Because something will come next.

 

I'm not one of these bitter curmudegoens. Really I'm not. The words I'm about to type I have never verbalized before.

But ...

If I had access to Doc Brown's DeLorean, I would go back in time, show my 18-year-old self the predicament this business is in, and slap myself silly until I decided to go to law school.

 

Not in print. And if I'm not mistaken, the wages in "alternative media" and writing for the web are not high enough to support you much less a wife and family — at least not yet. Maybe, one day, if someone figures out how to make money off the net, those wages will rise. But until then, unless you're already an established columnist purged from a paper, there's not much money in it.

We just lost our lowest seniority reporter to layoffs. She's been here four months. She's not even going to attempt to look for a newspaper job and she has no broadcast or photo/video/slide show experience. And she went to one of the best J-Schools around. She's resigned to being done in the business after four months. And she's not that bad, really. She's going back to law school.

Be an estate lawyer, people will always die and there will always be death taxes.

 

Also first time poster...

I've been out of the biz for a few years. STL and Buck make some good points. A lot of organizations need folks who can write - either for print or Web. I think journalists can take their organizational and deadline skills into any organization and be rock stars. It's not like you're ever going to face a deadline where you're trying to file a gamer within 5 minutes for first edition and your laptop crashes.

 

hope for young journalists? heck, i'm wondering if there's hope for middle-age journalists?

 

And the pay is awful only going to get worse.

 

Jeez. Another one of these threads with another slew of heartbreaking truth bombs.

I'm graduating in May and didn't go to a great J-school. Went to a private NC school that had a print/electronic journalism major because I wanted to play baseball and Division II was my only option. Feels a little dumb looking back on it, but there are no two things in this world I love more than writing and baseball.

People say follow your heart, but another ancient quote is that the heart is way too tricky, too fickle, too often.

But if by "follow your heart" people mean do what you love, then yeah, that's the route to take.

I'm going to do everything I can to get into magazines and I'll try to write some books. I've considered the law school route or the MBA route, but at this point, there's no way I'd be happy in that career path.

But then, who knows what's going to change in the next few years.

 

The skills young journalists — really, all journalists — learn are universal. Critical thinking, the ability to distill a complicated story into something easier to understand, speaking truth to power, being able to connect with people — sources and readers — I truly believe that there will always be a demand for those skills. So in that sense, yes, there's hope.
Beyond that? I hope there's nobody in college still wedded to the idea of working for a newspaper. They are deluding themselves. And an already-competitive field is only getting more competitive, since there are plenty of out-of-work journalists out there.
I'm almost 10 years out of college, and I know I won't be able to retire from newspapers. My career goals have gone from working at a major metro to just staying employed at a newspaper until I can find another job that doesn't involve worrying about cutbacks based on my company's stock price. I can't imagine what kind of long-term plans today's journalism students have.

 

Same there, TX. I've been at the same shop 23 years. I don't care what today's young journalists are facing. I'm looking out for myself.

 

I just think it's about time people became realistic about their talent/standing. If I was at a small daily still, I think I would either send some feelers out and get a genuine observation of my talent from some majors. If a major editor said that I had some chops, and that there was a future, I would continue.
But the days of just being adequate and moving up are completely gone.

And to be honest, luck is just as important these days.

 

Plenty of hope for young journalists.

Internet will eventually take over. A business model nobody's figured out yet will make Internet journalism somewhat profitable.

Newspapers aren't a great place to be right now. But then again, unless you're on an Army base somewhere, working at McDonald's or working in health care, it's not a great time to be anywhere.

I actually know more people on the broadcast side who have been fired than the print side. And a lot of my friends who work in the insurance and marketing industries have seen drastic pay cuts as well.

Economy will turn around eventually. And in our ever-evolving world, there will be opportunities to be a content provider. Just because we don't have the answers right now doesn't mean we won't always.

 

Some hope? Yes, but I hate to say that because then a lot of people won't get out while it's still easy for them.

Think of it like acting or fiction-writing. There will still be jobs, but there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of hopefuls for each of them. For almost everyone, it's not worth it.