Dying of exposure
Why write for money when you can write for exposure asks Lee Zachariah. Unless you have to pay the rent, that is.
Until recently, the best career advice one could receive was ‘Find out what you love doing and find a way to get paid for it’.
Although this meaningless mantra would, if universally applied, quickly lead to a world without garbage collectors, sewerage workers or Channel Ten CEOs, it was just motivational enough to pass the time in the career counsellor’s office.
It’s difficult to give that advice nowadays to anyone wishing to enter journalism. Discouraging young people from following their dreams would be caddish, so perhaps we should adjust our advice slightly and invoke Charles Bukowski: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
I started in journalism in 1992 and for the first year at least I worked my butt off for free. Just the way it is, sadly… That said, I did go on to have a moderately successful career as a writer and for much of that made a salary in excess of six figures….
Ten tips for aspiring journalists…
1) Just because you have a media degree does not mean you are any good and your dream job will be automatically waiting for you the day you finish uni.
2) If you are lucky enough to score a job, remember the first five years will most likely be making coffee and updating a website (if you’re lucky)
3) Few journalists EVER get to write about what they want to write about.
4) Just because you’re a competent writer does NOT make you a good journalist.
5) Don’t turn up to a job interview and say you actually want to be a scriptwriter.
6) If you don’t voraciously consume media every day – newspapers, mags, journals, TV, online etc – don’t bother (become a scriptwriter.)
7) Journalism is a very transparent career – you fast work out who’s good and who’s not.
8) Your editor wants ideas, ideas and more ideas. If you don’t have that creative ‘news sense’ give it away now.
9) There’s a lot of ego in the industry (see: wankers), it’s not for the thin-skinned.
10) Don’t do it for the money.
… and (11) having a blog and writing opinion pieces no one reads does not make you a journalist either…
I don’t believe the editor from The Atlantic was being ‘reasonable’ at all. Thayer was justifiably insulted by the request to use his article for no fee. Writers and journalists the world over need to firmly stamp their feet and respond exactly as Thayer has done each and every time they are offered anything other than the pay they rightly deserve. Otherwise the craft will be left to degrade beyond the point where any talented would-be writers and journalists even consider it as a career path. I hope publications like The Atlantic revisit their policies here and do the right thing in future. After all, it’s content like that produced by writers like Thayer that underpins their whole business.