Should I get in now?

The key is being willing to move wherever.
I'm young - 27 - and single, but every time I look at the job openings they are in places I don't really want to move to.
I have no desire to move to the Northeast when my whole family lives in the Northwest.
Hell, Texas is far enough away.
But good luck finding work in the West, unless you are willing to move to Wyoming or somewhere just as desolate.
If you really are willing to move all over the country and be thousands of miles from family, then sure, there are opportunities in this business.
But with the uncertainty in this field right now, I'm not sure I'd recommend this field to anyone.

 

In all honesty, I always say the only thing I'd do different about my life is to change my major to anything other than journalism.
I love what I do, but I'm certain I won't do it forever and I already wish I had a degree with a little more versatility.
Listen to us, kid. We are in the battlezone every day and we see our friends dying all around us.

 

Offer to cover a beat for $17k per year. You'll be a sure thing at a major paper.

 

Major paper? Shit, any paper that is bigger than 9k would take that.

 

Doesn't mean he shouldn't aim high.

 

Good point.

 

You say the world will always need sportswriters, right?

Imagine for a minute you live in the city of Metro. There are two big papers, Metro Times and Metro Journal. There's also the North Metro Tribune and the South Metro Press. Plus there's the Suburban Herald and the South Suburban Gazette, and a half-dozen community rags in the 'burbs.

Let's say there's an MLB team in Metro. There was a time when the Times, Journal, Tribune, Press, Herald and Gazette each had a beat writer, backup beat writer, columnist and photographer to cover the team. Sure, the backup, columnist and photog did other things, but let's keep this simple.

The same company that owns the Times owns the Herald and Gazette, so to save money, the two suburban papers now run the Times' copy and photos under the guise of "staff-generated content." So the Herald and Gazette beat writers, backups, columnist and photog are all reassigned.

The Journal, which is owned by the same company as the Tribune, gets wind of that idea. Soon the Tribune beat writer, backup, columnist and photog have been reassigned, too.

The Press is a PM paper and closes one day. Now you've got a beat writer, backup, columnist, photog, SE, ASE, deskers and prep writers all looking for new jobs.

At this point you've got just two papers, the Journal and the Times, covering the MLB team with staff writers. But the Journal is owned by Fuckhead Publishing Inc., and so they decide that in an effort to save money, they won't send the beat writer to away games. Instead, they'll fill it with wire copy when the MLB team is on the road. In the interest of Local Coverage, when the team is on the road, the beat writer will fill in covering prep badmitton.

So you went from having an area with six MLB beat writers, six backup beat writers, six columnists who paid attention to the team and six photogs who would get to shoot it to an area where you have one full-time beat writer, one home-game beat writer, one unemployed beat writer and three beat writers who were downgraded from having an MLB beat to writing about club volleyball. Oh, and one part-time sportswriter from the AP bureau who is a year out of college and is thrilled to be making $30K per year in exchange for a press pass.

My point is, competition is a lot stiffer these days because of the changes that are happening throughout the industry. Where there used to be six jobs, there is now just one. The world will always need plumbers and electricians, the world will not always need as many sportswriters.

 

Information technology was my second choice. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20.