Average journalism major starting salary is...

The more I read and consider this, the more I'm convinced this figure is complete bullshit. No way in hell the average starting salary in journalism is $41k. The author is full of shit.

 

It's not journalism. It's J-school majors.

The number still seems high, but there's a big difference between journalism jobs and jobs held by J-school majors.

 

$24k base my first year, but we had several big events in town and OT and mileage bumped that up in a big way.
jumped past $41k several years ago, and i'm glad i'm still glad i'm out now.

 

that's outstanding. and what's your retort?

 

Mine usually is "Hey, I'm only 'old' for an athlete!"

 

nicely played.

 

Thank you. The story is misleading, which makes the writer full of shit.

 

I agree. I didn't need author to tell me that though. I've lived it and seen it.

 

For the most part, with some exceptions, I would say that anyone covering preps for less than $30K a year three or four years into this should probably start looking to move on.

 

While I suspect no good can come of admitting this, I am sheepishly raising my hand.

And no, I did not graduate from a big-time J-school. No, I did not go to grad school.

My experience is a huge outlier. I'm happy to admit this. I went to school with a lot of really talented people who could have worked at any Metro in the country. Many, however, ended up earning very little and eventually left the biz. They are generally happier and have less anxiety.

I will say, however, four kids who I worked with on the student paper in college ended up with decent middle class journalism jobs earning above the number discussed here. Seattle Times, Oregonian, AP, Tacoma, and two that have to be really close in South Dakota (he's on the masthead), and Longview, Wash. (Also on the masthead.) There are three more photographers I've lost touch with who also have to be close or beyond that number now, because I see what they're up to one Facebook. But three of my friends made that number right out of school. I was the fourth. This was 12 years ago.

Obviously that number still smells like bullshit, especially in the current market. There are no good answers to the salary problem. I know so many great journalists who got fed up and left the business. And I know a buch of people who are widely overpaid for what they produce. When I occasionally talk to kids in schools, I try to convey how hard it is to get the job they want in this field. But at the same time, I can't ever tell them to get out and give up on that dream. How could I say that to someone when it worked out for me? How arrogant would that be?

 

I agree with some of this, but ... times have changed. People's own experiences from more than five years out just don't matter to what's happening in journalism now. It's far more difficult now to get to that middle class. So if you're telling them "you won't get rich and I knew I wasn't going to get rich but that's OK," that's not the story. The story now is "you will be poor, most probably."

 

I think that line is probably fair. But it's also sort of like telling a high school kid he will never make the NBA or NFL or MLB. I don't think their lives are ruined if they work real hard for several years and come up short. Realistically, its not going to happen, but if you want to still try, that's not a wrong choice, or even a stupid choice. It's just a risk, and everything in life worth chasing involves a little risk. Just have a back-up plan too.

Where I think we lose as a society is when communities suffer for lack of watchdogs and information gatherers. Those are real consequences to journalism having almost no middle class. It's less relevant in our line of work certainly, but if local politician is giving no-bid government contracts to his campaign donors or putting people on the payroll with connections to his wife or brother or whatever, and the reporter who knew how to shine a light on all this through simple public document searches got fed up earning $32,400, and now no one knows how to do much beyond cover a press conference, then that's where we all suffer. And I don't know how we fix that problem.