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Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to a low salary?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Baron Scicluna, Jun 19, 2010.

  1. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Um, newb. As of now, I AM out of newspapers, through no fault of my own. And I wasn't necessarily trying to get back in.

    I've gone back to school and received a paralegal certificate. I've sent out tons of resumes and had about six in-person interviews plus a couple of phoners. Heck, I'm even using my extra spare time to attempt to write a novel (I'm about 48,000 words through, and counting).

    In short, I think I've done everything I can to try to get out of the newspaper business. Unfortunantly, I'm out of work in the worst economy in several generations. A couple of the jobs that I applied for received HUNDREDS of resumes.

    So, if I get hired for this gig, I'll be taking it, and I'll be keeping my resume polished.
     
  2. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Ah, one of those the-Internets-will-save-us types. The medium where 99 percent of the operations aren't coming close to breaking even. Yeah, that.
     
  3. Andy_Cunanan

    Andy_Cunanan New Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Ah, one of those ignorant people who don't keep up with industry trends.

    From Poynter.org on June 13:

    The Internet is poised to overtake newspapers as the second-largest U.S. advertising medium by revenue behind television, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010 to 2014.

    Revenue from online ads is expected to increase in the next five years, according to a report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, according to the report, which PwC plans to release Tuesday.

    Newspapers, meanwhile, continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue. According to numbers released by the Newspaper Association of America earlier this year, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6% in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PwC report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will hit $22.3 billion by 2014

     
  4. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Fetch me a Yuengling, newbie.
     
  5. Andy_Cunanan

    Andy_Cunanan New Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Couple that ad revenue overtaking print revenue and subtract Circulation, Prepress, Printing operation, Delivery trucks and paper and ink costs = So long, newspapers.

    But don't pay me any mind. I'm a newbie! Just keep covering those high school sports beats for the local rag and live with the consequences.
     
  6. Andy_Cunanan

    Andy_Cunanan New Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    Smart, well-reasoned contribution to the discussion.
     
  7. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?


    Nothing more need be said.
     
  8. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    You know, if 15 years in we're still selling banner ads for 2 cents an impression and can't get much more than that, I really don't see where people think we're going to go in the next 15 years.
     
  9. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    Re: Job interview question: What if they ask how committed I am to newspapers?

    This thread wasn't even really about being "committed to newspapers," despite the subject heading (which should maybe be changed by the OP). It was really about being committed to a low-paying job.
     
  10. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    There are about, oh, 325,352,895,023,628 web sites.

    There are 1,400 daily newspapers.

    So I would freaking hope that online would surpass print in advertising revenue. But once you slice the pie 325,352,895,023,628 ways, well, you pretty much starve to death.

    Why? I will make more this year that I would make in 2-3 years in whatever I find once my newspaper kicks me to the curb. So if you don't mind, I will keep a death grip onto this job, pay the remaining 22 months on my mortgage and sock $900/month into my 401(k). Because I surely won't have that luxury when my newspaper career ends.
     
  11. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    To the first point: I haven't seen a newspaper yet that gets any cash from both it's product and any advertising on the web. If there is one, please correct me.

    Papers who give their information away (such as mine), naturally, aren't going to make squat off their product. When people read the news for free, it gives them no motivation to subscribe to the paper. We're giving them the city commission and the high school basketball game for freaking free and they can go to UComics to get the comics we print, mlb.com to get the Royals, and 16 fan sites to get stuff on KU. We have this "Technavia" people can subscribe to, which is essentially .pdfs of all our pages. But I really doubt that people who are reading our site miss Dear Abby, Dr. Gott and Morton Kondracke enough to want to pay for that. We partnered with MyCapture for photo printing, but it's user unfriendly to an extreme. It takes our computers hours to upload all the photos we shoot at a game and people are disappointed to find out that they're going to receive a low-quality print in the mail instead of a digital copy (We're going to let the partnership expire when the contract runs out in a couple of months). So yeah, our website is probably actually a big part of the reason we struggle to make money. It hasn't been paying for itself. And I think there are only three advertisers on it anyway.

    A paper 40 miles to our west has decided to charge people for content. But they're charging the same rates for access as they do for their print edition ($95 for a full year), which makes me think that they set that rate to try and make people decide to buy a subscription to the print edition. I used to look at it quite a bit but I stopped once they started charging. I'm betting that it makes nothing on advertising because who's looking at it now?

    To the second point: I got out of newspapers for a year. I went from $12 an hour to $7.80. I got my ass right back in on the first opportunity. $12 an hour may not sound like much to you but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative in this economy (My sister makes more than me — at Walmart, but she had to work there 15 years to get that much). And if I find some sort of related job (P.R., sports information, whatever) that pays as much or more without all the demands of being a one-man sports department and being the interim managing editor for the last 16 months (Ooh! There's another unqualified applicant for the job in my inbox ... whoop-de-freaking-do!), I'm out of there faster than than an NCAA 16 seed. However, I know that ain't coming along any time soon. I've been looking for years.

    So, yeah, Noob, the answers may be that simple to you, but they're not that easy over here in real life. Now get off my lawn!
     
  12. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I'm not a newbie and I couldn't agree more. I know there are a lot of people on this board who talk about their passion for journalism and writing. I also see a bunch of people on this board talking about how poor they are, how much they are overworked and how their employers shit on them. That's why my passion is not living in a old refrigerator box just so I can cover sports all day. Yeah, it pains me that I will never work for ESPN one day, but I also wanted to be an astronaut when I was 10. I'm okay with the fact that I will never go to the moon.
     
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