‘Journalism is the worst of jobs… unless you happen to think it the best’
Raymond Snoddy: After explaining some of the pitfalls and pointing out that only the determined, who really, really want to become journalists have any chance of making it, what do you actually say?
One of the most dreaded moments in a journalist’s life these days is the approach from a friend, or the friend of a friend, with the awful words: “My son, daughter, niece wants to become a journalist, how should they go about it and what do you think?”
Sometimes it’s not even safe to go to the dentist. Soon after the drilling has been completed comes the magic question: “Would you mind having a word with my partner – his son is interested in…”.
Naturally they all want to become investigative reporters or foreign correspondents at the very least. Some aged hacks, heavy with care and memories of a more benign past, simple say: “Don’t!”
But that seems a careless cop-out. Surely young people and their parents deserve something more considered than that. After all we may be reduced in numbers and opportunities seem to shrink on an almost daily basis but a new generation of journalists, if we know what the term means any more, has surely got to come from somewhere.
There is certainly a paradox, which could almost be expressed as a mathematical equation.
There is an inverse relationship between the number of people wanting to become journalists and the opportunities available. The fewer the chances the more young people seem to want to queue up to rise to the challenge.
Perhaps that will change following the News of the World scandal, which surely must have taken the public reputation of journalists far below even estate agents and politicians.
On the other hand, the phone-hacking saga may have added a sprinkling of illicit glamour – even as the cast-iron way of getting cracking exclusives is stamped out forever, or at least for a year or two until the dust settles.
So after explaining some of the pitfalls and pointing out that only the determined, who really, really want to become journalists have any chance of making it, what do you actually say?
First you have to point out that in the internet age anyone can have access to an international audience through blogs and twitters and some of them are very good. It is a huge leap forward for democracy but is it journalism? Yes if the independent checking of facts, rather than personalised rants, are involved.
In the end the only practical marker that picks up what is journalism is money. If you get paid, however pitifully, you are a journalist. For the rest it’s a hobby.
University or no university? Ordinary degree or media or journalism studies?
At last year’s Society of Editors conference in Glasgow there was an amusing spat between Derek Tucker, the retiring editor of the Press and Journal Aberdeen, and the assembled ranks of the media academics.
For Tucker, most of the young graduates the academics were turning out did not have the skills or necessary curiosity he was looking for. Many didn’t really know what a story looked like.
In the bar afterwards Tucker’s view was applauded. But this game seems to be up. For good or ill journalism has become a graduate and even postgraduate occupation.
Unless, that is, the enormous hike in university fees changes student behaviour. We might just see a new generation of bright young things heading straight from school to media jobs – if they can find them.
For most, the sensible path is still to study for a serious degree in any subject other than media or journalism and top up with a one-year diploma at places such as City in London or Cardiff. But such a choice carries its own problems.
It is obviously in the interests of those who run media and journalism degrees to attract as many students as possible. Their jobs and professional existence depend on it. Yet sometimes they are shameless in implying, though not actually stating, that all you have to do is come and take this course and you will get a job in the media. It is no longer necessarily so.
The best strategy if you can manage it is to get a job with the BBC. Despite the 20% budget cuts, the licence fee still provides one of the largest pots of money around for journalism.
Elsewhere low pay is a problem, particularly in the regions. The growing freelance ranks face not just intense competitive pressure but rates that at the very least have not risen for years in line with inflation and often even worse.
Enthusiasm and optimism can only take you so far. How many young journalists can manage to get a mortgage in London or other major cities? Journalists probably have to co-habit to get any foothold on the property ladder. Better still, if you can manage it, marry a lawyer or merchant banker to help fund you obsession.
Even then, all old hacks agree, it’s just less fun being a journalist these days with fewer opportunities (if any) for long boozy lunches where sometimes real stories were obtained without the need for phone-hacking.
Too many journalists are now chained to their desks and computers for long hours like information processing slaves and don’t get out enough or meet enough people.
But as the late Bob James, one of the best journalistic trainers of his generation, was fond of saying: “Journalism is the worst of jobs… unless you happen to think it the best.”
Before too many tears fall into our pints help is at hand from an unexpected source – the Poynter Institute in the US. On the Institute’s website is an article headlined: Ten Reasons You Should Hire a Journalist.
They are – journalists will improve writing, photography and design in your organisation; deliver on deadline; are multi-taskers; quick studies; critical thinkers who get answers faster than most; know how to use the web; have a great work ethic (well sometimes) have a solid moral compass (ahem) and are loyal (up to a point).
The Poynter list should reassure parents and dentists everywhere that their off-spring are not entirely mad.
Acute readers will, however, have noticed that it’s all about why journalists who have failed to find, or keep, satisfactory jobs in journalism should be employed by other organisations. Cold comfort maybe but at least it’s better than the dole.