I’m Not Cut Out for Journalism’s Precarity. But You Might Be.
The past year hasn’t given me any reason to regret quitting my journalism major in college — but I still do.
Following a record wave of layoffs in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, 2021 has not been much better for the journalism industry. In February, Bloomberg News announced layoffs of nearly 100 journalists. And earlier this month Buzzfeed let go of nearly 50 employees, many of them high-profile senior reporters, at its newly acquired digital publication, HuffPost, and shuttered HuffPost’s Canadian division for good.
On top of pandemic-related revenue losses, there are growing fears that digital publications, once thought to be the all-powerful successor to the print business, are slowly being gutted by writers taking their talents and readers to Substack where they can publish without all the red tape of traditional newsrooms. And as the New York Times’ acquisition of prominent columnists Ezra Klein (from Vox) and Jamelle Bouie (from Slate) suggests, the exodus of writers from traditional newspapers and magazines to digital publications has been greatly exaggerated over the past decade as traditional newspapers and magazines have bigger, more trusted brand names that help them retain a large share of the subscriber base that smaller, lesser-known digital publications haven’t had as many years to cultivate.
In short, the past year hasn’t given me any reason to regret abandoning journalism as a career path 12 years ago when I was a sophomore in college — but I still do. Perhaps I would have ended in the same place as I am now blogging and freelancing as a hobby, but if I had majored in journalism back then at least I would have been able to repurpose my skills for the new media market much sooner than I did (I did not start a formal, revenue-generating political blog until 2017). In other words, I wish I had given myself a chance to make it or break it in journalism when I was younger, relatively healthy, and had low debt and working-age parents.
Currently I work on a college campus where I’m surrounded by people who still have time to take risks I didn’t take in 2009 because of the recession. I sometimes wonder: If a student asked me if it was a good idea to go into journalism in this economy, what would I tell them? In some ways they are actually worse off than I was in 2009 — back then, we still had our fantasies about the limitless potential of digital publications. Young people today don’t even have that. But, assuming they think it’s useful taking advice from someone who didn’t make it in the industry, there are three things I would tell any aspiring journalist to help answer that question.
1. You must accept precarity as a feature, not a bug, of the industry.
Print journalism isn’t really dying — at least not the need for creative and analytical skills to tell stories of the human condition. But in terms of living in a world where journalistic skill is valued to the point of generating lots of revenue for media companies and, by extension, providing steady income for writers, journalism is mostly a land of lucky breaks, seized opportunity, and pedigree. In other words, pursuing a career in journalism is a big risk that never quite stops feeling risky. The vast majority of people who decide to become working journalists today are not going to be able to retire after 25 years with the same media company. You have to want to do this bad enough to accept the likelihood that you won’t have consistent work as a freelancer or long-term job security as a staff member at a media company.
What didn’t work for me: Hoping that endless freelance jobs and blogging would magically turn into a staff position.
What may work for you: Commit to one or the other (pitching for paid writing opportunities or applying for staff jobs) and focus on building your portfolio and your audience.
2. You can be replaced, but you don’t have to be replaceable.
Deciding to work in an industry where there’s an above-average chance that you will be replaced by someone who is more cost-efficient for the company to keep does not mean you as a writer are replaceable — and much of your success moving forward comes down to what you do to preserve yourself against the instability of the industry. In your writing, what perspectives can you offer that set you apart from other writers? And in addition to your writing, what skills can you offer a media company? Graphic design, quantitative research and analysis, foreign language, and digital marketing are all valuable skills for writers to have when there are always more good writers than there are good media jobs available.
What didn’t work for me: Having a narrow set of writing interests (progressive political commentary) that had limited mainstream appeal in the days before websites like Vox or self-publishing platforms like Medium.
What may work for you: Learn to code (I’m kidding). Figure out what stories only you can tell, or what you can tell better than others as a woman, a person of color, someone who is queer or disabled or working class. If you’re going to work in an industry where there’s lots of competing talent and little job security, you need a unique brand or skillset that gives you an edge in journalism’s ever-shrinking job market.
3. You need people to like you — a lot.
Relationships are everything in journalism — from editors to the subjects of your stories to the audience reading them. To have any sort of staying power in this industry, you need to have above average people skills and a good eye for what people want to read. Because so many people get their news through social media, Facebook and Twitter have outsized influence over what content generates views and, by extension, money for writers.
The incentives for building an online audience are pretty self-evident; less so are the reasons young writers need to learn how to build and leverage relationships in and outside of the journalism industry. I don’t just mean attending events or joining organizations that allow you to connect with fellow writers and higher-ups in media. It also helps (if not more so) to have friends, relatives, coworkers, classmates, and instructors who support your work, promote it on their own social media accounts, and can write excellent job references for you on the spot.
What didn’t work for me: Self-promotion, attending events or participating in organization where I could rub elbows with future contacts in the industry.
What may work for you: If you’re a student, get involved in as many media-related organizations as you can, especially the campus newspaper. If you’re no longer in school, you’ll need to focus on building your audience organically through social media by “flooding the zone” — that is, posting your writing in the spaces your desired audience is most likely to read it. Follow freelance writers and social media accounts that regularly track paid writing opportunities. And always consider who can be a good reference for you someday.
