"Getting out of the business" resource thread

I know a lot of folks who moved from journalism jobs to other careers. All seem happy and hardly miss the old grind.

 

Apparently so, much of the time.

It's almost funny that, for so many journalists, it really is practically a revelation when they move into something else. Or, at least, it feels like one early on. You really are kind of conscious of it. But it's hard to really understand or appreciate until you experience it.

 

I've been working toward a different degree and exploring other avenues but I've woken up in cold sweats lately thinking "newspapers are my only skills. Anyone ever feel this way?

 

All the time, which explains why I'm still hanging on -- at 36. If I'd only followed my peers out the door five years ago ...

 

Sure. But I think you'll find that some of your newspaper skills translate nicely into other fields. I've had an adjustment period at my new gig, especially when it comes to the business side of publishing. But I'm learning quickly. There are a lot of positives that come from your news training: You can write, you can handle deadlines, you communicate well with strangers for the most part, you can juggle a lot of different things at once. Don't sell yourself short.

 

As tough as it is, you have to pull the plug. This business is not treating you very well and frankly there's no future in it especially in your situation. You are not gonna get a raise anytime soon if ever again. Maybe you'll be promoted to editor of your smaller paper someday. Frankly, I'd get out now. You are getting overworked like many of us in this business and it isn't worth it.

 

It's funny how in the newspaper business it doesn't work that way. Good for you now. Newspapers I've worked at have gotten away with making their employees work 60 and get paid for 40. It's sad but a way of life. It's part of the culture. If you don't comply, you are out.

 

I've been trying for years to get out. Problem is a career on the copy desk left me with no portfolio to use to apply for, say, PR. I'm currently working on an application for a media specialist at a large urban school but I'm not at all confident because no matter how good or bad of a writer I may be, I have no way to prove it.

It's depressing because I have/had been working on an associate's degree for the past couple of years because I thought it would be a way out. Well, I pass some classes with flying colors but others I'm woefully not compatible with, to the point I feel I've wasted the past year and a half. It's why I said I wake up in cold sweats thinking "I'm only qualified to work on a copy desk" and since I'm in a small, midwestern town, this is it for me.

I have nightmares of being in this same chair 15 years from now as a 50-year-old copy editor still making less than $34,000 a year. *sigh*. I'm making myself depressed.

 

Where is the best spots to look for jobs at schools as like a media specialist? Or in communications departments or athletic departments? I am looking to get out too. I have been in the biz too long and am only 29. I am starting to become pretty jaded and don't want to take any of it home but it's hard sometimes. I have a 4-year-old and in March I got a gig writing in news after the Gannett re-organization and help with sports during Friday night football, so I get to see my wife and daughter much more, but still the business of dealing with editors that have such arrogance is just not for me. I have a wife and daughter and want something I love to do again. I used to love writing for the newspaper, but now as Fredrick said, newspapers have an amazing arrogance wanting you to work 60 hours get paid 40, "for the greater good" but never reward that. Just ask more. I am ready to leave. I am back at school while still working and asking teachers the best avenues and am thinking something at a school or PR, but not quite sure., just know I am ready to be done with newspapers.

 

CoSIDA is a place to look if you're trying to get an in at a college athletics department. Fair warning, though, the hours for an SID at a smaller school are absolutely miserable, and the pay isn't a whole lot better. If you can find your way in at a mid-level Division I school, there are at least enough people to split the workload. But I have a few friends who are Division III SIDs, and 12-plus hour days are the norm, not the exception. You're involved with everything, from website maintenance, media relations, stat keeping, even doing P.A. or scoreboard at some events.

 

Shitty money and 12-hour days, too?
Holy shit, where do I sign!?!

 

If you need some writing clips, make some. I was in the business 30 years but included something humorous I wrote for fun on my blog for a writing sample so I didn't just have sports clips. You can look for freelance stuff too.