Too late for a career change?

One of my older brothers just made a career change into journalism.

He was a longtime Wall St. analyst with no background in journalism. Dow Jones brought him on part time and then, almost immediately upgraded him to full time.

As fractured as the media environment is today, I think this is the best route to go -- be an expert on a subject and use that expertise to transition into journalism.

When writing for ever more narrow audiences who have a good knowledge of the subject matter, it's hard for a generalist to compete.

So, a doctor writing about healthcare issues, a former political aid writing about politics, a lawyer writing about legal issues, or a trader/analyst writing about Wall St. has a credibility with their audience and can provide the level of coverage they desire.

These areas of coverage are also where the growth is in the industry as people are willing to pay a premium for specialized coverage.

 

Very good thoughts here.

 

I've posted this before, as well, and I think it's good advice. I think it's particularly great advice for undergraduates. If I had it to do all over again, I would drop the English major in a heartbeat and major in something like economics or foreign relations.

Readers today are demanding. Even in sports, savvy readers roll their eyes when college beat writers or, especially, generalist columnists try to write about recruiting. Sites like Rivals.com have armies of experts totally immersed in the details and nuances of the process. So it only goes to figure that analogous situations apply to other narrow niches in reporting.

 

I think a lot of this depends on the background of the hiring manager. People with Ivy League degrees want to hire others with the same background.

Folks who "worked their way up" sometimes have their own biases against the ivy league types.

When I interviewed for my job at Continental Airlines, I nearly shit when my potential boss mentioned that she had a harvard MBA. I figured she'd never hire me -- someone who didn't even have an undergrad degree. I was pleasantly surprised when she did offer me the job, but I think it's the exception.

 

I know you know this - and you are just representing the point of view of the hypothetical hiring manager - but the reflexive assumption that graduates of Ivy League schools and their analogues like Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Northwestern, Duke, etc., etc. didn't "work() their way up" is ridiculous in its own right.

 

100% And, that's why I put it in quotes.

 

YankeeFan's post is excellent advice, and especially with regard to the fact that you wrote later that you've lived in several countries, I had similar thoughts as to the direction you should, perhaps, try to take.

It sounds like you've focused on sports. But you might try for news jobs -- even foreign bureau writing/corresponding (papers actually often have to actively recruit in-house for these types of jobs) or try for some culture-related writing by playing up your experience with other countries -- and languages, if that applies -- and use those things to their best advantage.

My other thought, sadly, would be to focus more on technical aspects of today's journalism world more than on reporting and writing.

Full-scale technical skills and talents and a high comfort level with with those various programs -- InDesign, Photoshop, Quark Xpress, CCI, HTML/digital production work, video operation and editing and broadcast/radio/social media technology skills will probably get you noticed and hired more quickly than whatever writing you do.

Today's journalism is about immediacy and technology, not writing.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have so much emphasis on blogs and Twitter.

 

While it might be tough for the original poster -- married with kids -- to pursue this path, I found it interesting that in looking at Ben Wedeman's background while following his coverage from Egypt, I discovered that he originally moved to Jordan with no job. He got hired by CNN as a local employee as a producer, sound tech, translator, etc.

He used that experience, his language skills (he speaks) Arabic), and his knowledge of the region to advance his career.

 

$60,000? You can go somewhere for much, much less than that at a very good school.

Besides, a master's degree allowed me to network, improve my writing and boost my resume. I applied for two years for the MLB.com internship, didn't get it, put my graduate school on the resume and got it. Not saying it was the school, but you gotta wonder when it was basically the same clips and cover letter.

 

I'm now a year more certain that I'm in it for the long haul.

 

I thought you're still looking for your first full-time reporting job a few years after that internship.? Did you go to grad school just to get an MLB.com internship?

 

Thanks again to all who took the time to offer advice. I love sports, but I have plenty of other passions as well. I'm definitely not the guy who reads the sports section and throws the rest of the paper in the trash. I had originally planned to try to focus on international affairs/foreign policy reporting, but I got my first break with a sports story and now almost all of my best clips are sports features, so it's been tricky to break from that mold. Has anyone here ever sold a travel feature, sending sports clips? I'm sure it's possible, but not easy.