Advice For Those Starting Out

I'll post a longer answer to the original question at some point, but I wanted to quote and start here.

The digital communication job market is as flimsy and in flux as journalism. Or it will be. The bottoms consistently drop out of these jobs, and there are definitely salary ceilings. If I had a dime for every 24-year-old "non-profit social media coordinator" out there...

If you want to try to make a wad of cash before a job fizzles out, Silicon Valley. Pray you're good, and prepare to work 19.6 hours per day. They worship at the altar of productivity. Then, when you're about ready to combust from the all the work stress, get out and fall into one of those corporate communications jobs. Then, when you're about 45, and the corporation contracts your job....

I mean, this can go on and on and on. Reality is, fewer and fewer people have the money, fewer and fewer people have good jobs, and the people with the money and the jobs are more and more fickle, conservative and capricious about what they do with that money and those jobs. What's happening in journalism...is gonna happen everywhere. That's the culture. That's what America is now. You'd better be Billy fucking Beane to navigate it OR be one of those lucky stars that tumbles into, I dunno, a hot app or the right angel investor for your tech company.

 

Wow, I didn't know this would cause such a large response!...having said that - no one has answered the questions I posted haha.

Answer here >> Shold Media Group » SMG Media Survey

 

I filled out the web thing, but didn't complete it - I don't fill out personal info on any site, no matter how well-intentioned.

 

Speaking of filling out things on line, and a bit of a threadjack, but do any of you fill out the equal opportunity questionaires asking your race and disabilities?

I usually do because, while they say that it's optional, you know what that usually means. Yet, I can't help but think that the employer looks it over and uses it as part of their hiring decisions.

 

No way, all hires are made solely on merit.

 

I recently spoke with a 20-year-old college sophomore who came up to me and said, "I work for my student newspaper and want to be a sportswriter for a newspaper or Website like ESPN.com or CBSsports.com. Can you give me some career advice?"
Taken aback by the person approaching me, I was pretty forceful in telling that person to major in something else and by all means to forget about a career as a sportswriter. I surprised myself at the bitter things I was saying. I basically said, 'If you get a job covering a pro or college team you will have no time for family life. You will probably not purchase a house because you won't be able to maintain it or afford it. You will basically be working 24/7 in this new information age and you will have a very unfulfilled life. You also will be lucky to be paid much more than the salary you start at. You might get a 1 percent raise per year if you are lucky. You also will find your job getting in the way of everything. If you want to go see the Rolling Stones, just count on those plans being ruined by some breaking news happening just as you get in your car to drive to the concert. You will have to drop what you are doing and work because there won't be anybody else to cover for you because of serious understaffing."
" I also said, "If you love writing and sports. If you are totally passionate about writing and just can't see doing anything else you will ignore everything I've just told you, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself without warning you about what a horrible profession this is."

 

Yet another ranking of 200 jobs which lists journalists last, at No. 200. From Poynter:

Lumberjack: Now better than being a newspaper reporter | Poynter.

 

• Don't expect to start at a weekly or small daily and work your way to a big-time gig. In college, do everything you can possibly do to bite, scratch, and claw your way to starting at a major metro paper. Newspapers have seemingly become like law or accounting or consulting where you have to start high on the ladder, or you have little chance of ever getting there. I covered primarily preps for my first six years, with a home game MLB beat. I was eventually able to advance to columnist at a college town paper, but it included lots of other duties, as well, and topped out at $38,000 a year.
• Don't foreclose news side as an option, if for no other reason than that it opens up your job possibilities, and you can always transition to sports later. And you'll be a better reporter and writer for it.
• One reason young people don't think they care about the money and the hours is because they don't have families yet. That changes everything, most significantly the role that your money and your time plays in your hierarchy of needs. When I was a sports writer, I felt racked with guilt for even thinking I wanted to make more money. That's what the 1 percent cares about, not me! Now that I have two kids and a wife, it's extremely important to me. Not for myself. As long as I have the funds to go to a few MLB games a year and the occasional craft beer six pack or bottle of bourbon, I'm fine. But for their security. And their day-to-day needs, from shoes to food to field trips, just add up. This weekend, we went to a museum and dropped about $200. It's nice to be able to do that.
• The industry sucks, but I don't agree with people, necessarily, about the job itself. Granted, I hated going to press conferences and gang bang interviews, and dealing with flaks. But I enjoyed my job, and I actually miss the loose irreverence of the news room.
• Once you have the job, if you really want to succeed, you better think every day about how you can add value to the product. You haven't succeeded because you got to sit in the press tent at the local PGA Tour swing and write the same story as 60 other schmoes. This attitude is why a lot of sports and team specific blogs are more interesting and informative than beat writers now. You should wake up every morning wondering what you might be able to break today and, short of that, what information or insight you can provide that the reader can't get elsewhere. Give people a reason to turn to you every day.

 

This is something I wish I had heard starting out. My first gig was the smallest of the small - a community weekly with a paltry circulation. I figured if I busted my ass, I would be able to make it to that national metro column job one day.

I did well enough to get out of that small weekly and eventually make it to a mid-sized daily, even got to cover some major college beats. But preps was my bread and butter and was going to be for a long time. That dream columnist job seemed further and further out of reach the more I progressed in the business, mostly because I started at such a deficit.

 

I wish I had heard this, but also to not take a desk job. When I interviewed, the managing editor asked why I wasn't putting in for the open reporter job (2, IIRC) and I told him, honestly "I'm trying to get my foot in the door." And I was hired as a copy editor with the understanding I'd do some reporting. But we did a special section that was basically a "State of the Coverage Area" thing and I did a handful of semi-puff pieces (they were news but really just updating the previous year's story) and after that I never got another byline.

I figured I'd toil away for a year, get noticed and finally be able to write - and then hopefully transition to sports. Well, I landed a sports copy editor job a couple of years later and I'm still doing it, just at another shop. It's true, young editors become old editors.

And I feel working sports desk is worse than sportswriting because at least when you are writing, you get a tangible product people may or may not appreciate. Only part of our job that gets noticed is when we screw up.

 

I'm a sportswriter and I'm OK!

 

Thing is, it didn't used to be that way.