Looking for some advice from you guys

When I majored in it, I honestly knew nothing about the field, I didn't really learn the realities until I had almost graduated.

This is the part that jumped out to me. If you could get through an entire journalism degree without being warned that, hey, it's a dying field -- your professors and your school failed you miserably. It's criminal what is going on in J-Schools today if this is allowed to happen. I feel like some of these guys should be arrested for fraud.

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I'd have to agree ... but on one level, isn't it our responsibility to vet our chosen field before we invest four years and thousands of dollars in getting a degree in said field???

That said, my advice is no, don't take the job if it's offered. It might not be, because your interviewer might pick up on the fact that your heart really isn't in it. There aren't enough jobs for those of us who really want to be here.

 

I'm of the mindset that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. Your students loans will come due, you'll have to eat and you'll have to fix your car whether you're working at a newspaper, getting that corporate writing job or living at home with Mom and Dad.
And the most important thing -- and I can't stress this enough -- is that even a job like that would be experience, and that always looks good to an employer. Always.
Besides, they may lay you off in another year, and at that point, you can collect unemployment and keep looking for that job of your dreams.

 

My 2 cents, unless you are passionate about a sports reporter job at a newspaper – and you aren't – do this paper, and yourself, a favor and respectfully decline the interview. This is no business for someone who would rather be a 9-to-5 clockwatcher.

 

Thanks for the responses. There's something else I wanted to add. It's not so much that I would hate writing for a newspaper, but here is my real issue. I am being considered for a different job, a dream, paid internship that lasts one year, but I will not know if I get that job until late July/August. So if I were to get THIS job, I would have to decide whether or not to take it before I knew if I got the other one.

So if I turned down this job because I'm holding out for the other one, I could walk away with nothing. If I were to take this job and get the other one, I would absolutely have to leave only about a month into it. And that doesn't seem right.

 

Again. This doesn't even seem debatable. Working in newspapers, especially an SE position, isn't a fall-back, safety-net type of job. It's a lifestyle.
You dont WANT to be in newspapers. Yeah, you might not mind it for a few months, but you don't WANT it.
So why bother?

You can go work as a temp somewhere and make more money, so why put yourself through the stress of busting ass at job you care nothing about? There are plenty of other people out there that want to be in this industry (what's left of it anyway). Let them.

 

The OP is several steps away from a starting position in a field he's mixed about, and he's thinking out loud. Good for him. That doesn't mean, though, that he wouldn't try to do a fine job if he were to get it. Drop the nobility cape -- move aside for those with a real passion? -- and respect the challenge in going forward in any profession in this economy.

 

B I N G O!!!!!