If there are only 40 journalist vacancies, where are all the journalism students going to work?
I had one of my occasional scrolls through our jobs board earlier today.
On the one hand, it was a delight, as for the first time we had more than 350 roles (free certainly does seem to be a popular price point).
But then an orphan leaped out. Our journalism category had just two jobs.
And it got worse when I realised that was a duplicate posting. So just one journalism job.
Now my first thought was that perhaps there are more journalism jobs elsewhere, and employers haven’t noticed Mumbrella for editorial roles just yet.
But it’s not so good for journalists elsewhere either. I took a quick look at Australia’s five biggest job sites:
- Seek lists 34 journalism/ writer jobs. However, within that list, the number of jobs that seem to genuinely involve even a little journalism looks to be not much more than 20.
- CareerOne, which is part of News Ltd, has just 11 journalist jobs
- Fairfax’s MyCareer has 12
- Jobsearch.gov.au has none at all
- Search4Jobs has no journalist jobs either
And of those jobs above, several are posted across a couple of sites. I’d say there are at best 30-40 journalism jobs that I can find advertised at the moment.
Which must be enormously daunting if you’re studying journalism as a university course, or are a journalist currently worrying for your job.
Certainly, it shows just how bad things are for journalists at a point when other parts of the media and marketing landscape are starting to boom again.
Of course, one caveat is that journalism is a profession that doesn’t advertise all of its vacancies. Word of mouth and luck plays a big part. My break came when I wrote to all of the local papers in my area on spec and my letter landed on the right desk on the right day.
And as another example, we created a role to hire a new member of the Mumbrella team after she approached us to work as an intern and impressed us over several months.
But nonetheless, across Australia, hundreds of journalism students are months away from graduating. I suspect that very few of them will ever work as journalists.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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>I suspect that very few of them will ever work as journalists.
True. And not just because there aren’t enough jobs.
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“I suspect that very few of them will ever work as journalists.”
That’s why God invented PR and pharmaceutical copywriting.
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It is unfortunate. When I did my undergaduate degree, which focused on journalism, the recurrent message from tutors and lecturers was that job prospects in the media were negligible or unachievable, which really just deterred people from seriously considering journalism as a viable career. I was able to get a job in communications through means similar to those outlined by Tim (working hard in an internship coupled with good timing), however most people I studied with, many of whom were very skilled writers, are still struggling to get FT media industry roles.
While I still often dream of being a sports journalist, I don’t consider it a particularly feasible aspiration, and one with so few possible in-
roads.
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…and almost all of these 40 jobs are based in Sydney. There were a couple in NZ, Perth, Cairns, Wagga, Adelaide and Canberra. But there were just 3 in Melbourne (1 of which was already expired. Applications were due by March 26th).
As a former journo who now works mostly for NGOs, I also know that the journalism students have to compete with a growing number of experienced journalists lurking just outside the industry – in PR-type jobs, running their own media companies/online pubs, working o.s., on maternity leave, on study leave, etc.
And they are always just a little interested in coming back into the fold.
Nina
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They are EAs…
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It’s not as bad as it seems at first glance, I think.
As you say, frequently jobs aren’t advertised, or are advertised in specific places, and part of this is the whole city vs. regional thing.
The ABC is in the process of hiring ~30 multimedia producers for regional areas, for example, for their ABC Open thingy.
Also, I’ve seen 4 jobs advertised on twitter in the last two weeks, not sure if they put the ads up elsewhere.
And some rural/regional papers are desperate for staff. Beuadesert Times is looking for an Editor. Editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner said she has a really high turn-over also, and has trouble finding committed reporters.
The Jakarta Globe is looking for copy editors, too, if you fancy a move to Indo.
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When i started my journalism degree in 2005 I asked my tutors and lecturers what would be the best path for me considering the jobs would probably shift dramatically with the uptake of online. They told me that if I studied really hard and did lots of work experience, coupled with being good of course, that I would get a job.
I spent my time hanging around the kids getting a Bachelor of Business and quickly calculated that hedging my bets on a journo job wasn’t a good idea.
I started playing in the digital realm looking at niche markets underrepresented by mass media and battled accusations from my tutors and lecturers of “citizen journalism” (because journalists shouldn’t have blogs apparently, it’s just wrong).
I am now posting on a “success story” of media on the internet and proudly not a journalist. Not because I wouldn’t love to be (it really was a dream), but there are so many people who would be good journalists and don’t know how to be anything else that I think it would be wrong to take their place in the job market…
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Maybe it’s just because I have always been in PR, and therefore started out by selling my soul, but I can’t help viewing people with aspirations to be journalists as dreamers. Kind of like wanting to be a novelist. Nice work, if you can get it. But you probably can’t. And if you do, it will probably be on an obscure trade mag (sorry, nothing against trade mags, but hard to win a Walkley there.) A job is different to an interest – if you love writing, write a blog, a book or a poem to your lover. Just don’t assume you’ll get paid for it.
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What did the journo graduate say to the marketing graduate….
Would you like fries with that?
Seriously not funny – we can only hope that people will one day wake up to the fact that a blog could be written by someone’s dog (and often looks as if it is) and would prefer well written interviews, coherent stories and good yarns backed up by proper research and facts.
Until then – if anyone needs an experienced PR in Melb email me.
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Thing is – of all the hundreds of journos I know – only about 2 of them did a journalism degree.
On top of that, not so long ago it was almost impossible to get into the media. Any media. Unless you were a teenager who could survive on less than $20K. Now, thanks to online, anyone can get out there. If you create or write for a successful blog, you get noticed. These guys are well on the radar for upcoming jobs, and they don’t need to go through job-seeking processes.
So it’s actually easier than ever to become a journo. But, making a living from it is something else. But that’s never changed.
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>While I still often dream of being a sports journalist
In which case you’re far better working in the sports arena or industry in some manner, and then transitioning. Consider the number of sports journalists who are ex-athletes: they bring specialist knowledge as well as celebrity factor in many instances.
The average news editor would far rather take graduates with history, politics, science, economics etc degrees than those who did “media studies” for three years.
Increasingly there are niche journalism positions: medical publishing, technology writing and so forth – that require sector specific degrees and actively reject those with journalism ones. Have a look at the requirements for some of the positions listed on Seek in the past few weeks.
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The funny thing I noticed about my transition from university to a job as a journalist is that all the women (arguably more females than males study comms degrees) drop off and land jobs in PR, meanwhile I’m battling away in the industry with all the men!!
Seriously kids, you don’t wanna study journalism, the pay is crap!
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Study is so over-rated. You become a journo by doing. At least I did. I will finish that degree one day…
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I cant believe you ARE a journalist
“But then an orphan LEAPED out.”
I think you may need to go back to uni yourself to learn a few things, including (but clearly not limited to) where comma’s do and don’t go.
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One of my Journalism lecturers told me that you become a journalist for the ego, not the pay. And that’s the story of how I ended up in PR.
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I have a journalism degree and now work in the IT industry. I was working for a web news / info company and calculated that the content people (mostly comms grads) were earning about a quarter of what the tech people (mostly IT grads) were making. I did a Grad Cert in Business Technology and switched sides.
I would say that some of the things I learned at journo school have been very useful in the business world, for example the ability to ask questions and actually listen to the answers and the ability to express concepts in plain English.
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I’ve often thought this myself… I’ve been a journo in Sydney for 15 years, I edited one of the lad’s mags for seven and now freelance for Fairfax, News, and most of the mainstream mags – Men’s Style, Rolling Stone, Cleo, etc…. One: it’s a really, really tough industry and sadly the best writers and journalists are often the least ones who can hack it. Two: the money is appalling – I’d make more working at McDonald’s than I do working as a degree qualified journalist writing investigative features for newspapers. And three: it’s a young man’s game (and women’s). I think it’s so stressful and poorly paid that most people get out of it by their 30s. That said, good journos who can do the treble – understand what makes a story, are brave interviewers and write well will get jobs. It’s an industry that fast works out the pretenders. And despite the stress, the shit money and the appalling egos, it can also be one of the most rewarding careers you can have. If you’re determined enough, you’ll get there. (PS Being a professional photographer these days would be 100 times worse).
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The pay is ok. The jobs are there if you look for them. I love my work and wouldn’t want to do anything else. Have to agree that it helps to have a background in some other area though.
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PSS And I’ve never seen anything to indicate having a media degree miraculously makes you this great journalist. It’s a career, much like being a chef or a musician, where you were either born with it or you write press releases!
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I returned to Sydney six months ago after a 7 year stint writing for a leading American masthead and I absolutely haven’t been able to find anything. Trying to crack Sydney media is near impossible and I am considering on online post graduate degree in Marketing to get myself out of this mess.
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@F – there should not be an apostrophe in “comma’s”. Please go back to Basic Competence school
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Look, I’m banging on now, but hopefully this puts it in perspective for journalist graduates. In the media, you can have all the art directors, the editors, the publishers, the ad sales guys, the fashion photographers, the IT nerds and the marketeers you want (even the people who make the ads), but if the journalists don’t come in every morning and create the copy, the content, then you’ve got nothing!!!!!!!! What’s the number one reason every time that someone buys a mag, a newspaper, reads a website, watches TV – the content!!!!!! If you ain’t got the journos you ain’t got nothin’!!!!!!!!! I’ve never met someone who reads Woman’s Day for the ads! Picks up Rolling Stone just to look at the design or checks out a website for its HTML coding!
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I’ll be employing some journos/website editors in the coming months and will certainly advertise on Mumbrella. Watch this space!
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There currently seem to be many more journalism grads than there are jobs, and it has been this way for ages. Hence jobs aren’t advertised because those with initiative have been knocking on the publishers’ doors for months before they even thought of hiring someone. At our organisation we might advertise for a quite senior hires or for cadet intakes, but most recruits would be people making us notice them first.
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I have been a journalist for 35 years, with very broad experience, including management. I currently work for the ABC in radio and online, but have considerable commercial radio and newspaper experience. I was one of the first Australians to actually get a journalism degree, and got panned for it by the old school. I have never been unemployed and never worked in PR.
I have hired and mentored many staff over the years. I must say I am appalled at the number of journalism courses being offered, compared to the number of jobs available. The media is shrinking. The internet has made it possible for everyone to be a publisher, which is, on balance, a good thing, but devastating for those who want to earn a living as real journalists.
The only reliable way to get a job in journalism is to go bush. The ABC, for instance, still struggles to find people who want to work in remote place like Mount Isa and Karratha, yet the way of life, and the stories you’ll cover, are things you’ll never forget. Go there for a brief period, do a good job, and you’ll have the experience to find a job in the city, if that’s what you want. If you can’t get a job in the country, just move yourself to a country centre which has an ABC, a local commercial radio station and a local newspaper. Offer yourself as a fill-in for anyone who goes on holidays, gets sick, goes on maternity leave. Work in a cafe in the meantime, but call in sick if the paper offers you a casual shift. Live in a caravan or in the back of a kombi.
Many times I’ve had jobs going in remote areas, and journalism students, desperate for a job, have refused to move from Sydney or Melbourne to take a short contract job in Alice Springs or Longreach. One person, for instance, who did take the punt and work as a fill-in producer in Alice Springs, because nothing was offering in Victoria, is now program director of a metro radio station.
But overall, I’d advise young people (including my own children) not to go into journalism. There just aren’t enough job. And that’s a pity, because there’s no shortage of stuff that needs to be reported!
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“It’s not as bad as it seems at first glance, I think.”
Nah, it’s worse. Not only are there no jobs; most of the ones that do exist are dreadful.
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Just to put the pay in perspective. I am a specialist journalist (tech, business, health) and the word rate I receive now is the same that I negotiated back in 1999. In fact some organisations have even offered me a pay cut! Aside from my phone and Internet bill, every other expense has increased significantly over the last 11 years. I love the work but have made decision not to live in an unrenovated house without any super to speak of for the rest of my life.
Would I do a journalism degree now – no @#@@!$ing way!
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@Al
That’s okay Al.
I’m not a a journalist so my mistakes dont matter. I just work in media bookings.
At least i’m not an embarassed journalist who doesn’t know the basic principles of writing!!!
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I’m a current media student – our course used to be a journalism degree but they now emphasise to us that we’re “new media producers”.
I’m due to finish my degree at the end of this semester and am looking at 6-12months unpaid internship before I’m even considered for ANY job. I think the issue should be how the media industry is able to get away with slave labour under the guise of an “internship” for jobs that don’t exist?
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Freelance, contract, “do anything for money” is the only way. Online mags abound, contract writing/copywriting is marvelous and certainly nicer than a desk, $32K (give or take a few K) and a week of shitty meetings, egos, socialising with work folk – boring boring boring. I write for everybody and anybody – reptile keeper magazine (I kid you not!) golf, travel, food, inflight, boating, environmental, government, theme parks – refreshing. It’s all money. I don’t want to be ‘seen’ or on some Sydney ‘scene’ with my face on the page. Only requirement of working solo is you do need to have 15 years exp +, EXCELLENT time management skills, no other life (it IS my life) and a rapacious appetite to track down information and tenacity to find the people who hold that information. Unlike a lot of journos on staff, I acknowledge I know nothing, only how to ask “but why?” of the right people. Oh and it helps to be a nice person, as you never know who you may have to sit next to at a press conference if you emerge from your freelance cave.
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In my experience working at newspapers and magazines, “university degree” is a massive turn on to me when judging a respective journo. No idea what they are taught, but they come out believing they know everything and struggle to write a brief, grasp the concept of developing and building contacts, and can’t understand why sometimes you have to work a long day (which is often when there’s the fun stuff happening). Give me a local newspaper/out of high school/made a few mistakes or a worked a couple years in a different field completely and falls into journalism. Fairfax prefers the latter when hiring advanced trainees (cadets are dead) and Tele likes you to have clawed your way in. There’s stacks of jobs up for grabs. You just need to show some journalistic skills to find/get them.
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Streetcorner.com.au is about to hire some journalists.
Perhaps localism, the core of our proposition, may open up some new opportunities for journalists.
We’ll place an ad on Mumbrella, as soon as we get a minute!
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Just found a minute…post ad for journalists….hopefully we’ll find some….
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Cadetships are not dead but are just hard to get. I know at least two news reporters at the Tele started as cadets straight from high school a few years ago. They had to intern first . It shows that determination, more than any degree, will get you where you want to go.
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There seems to be some sort of insane idea among some students that a degree in journalism qualifies you for a job in the media.
It doesn’t. It won’t get you within cooee. In fact many senior media people actively dislike graduates as smug, opinionated know-alls who seem to think their degree and number of Facebook friends qualifies them to start dictating how the business should be restructured.
In the media organisation where I work (bureau with approx 12 journos) everyone finds these young graduates incredibly irritating. We’ve had various graduates and interns come through under different schemes…Without exception they have all acted like some attention-deficit child: they couldn’t concentrate for more than 10 minutes without wanting to text, update their status or tweet, Amazingly they seemed to think that broadcasting their daily trivia and a grab-bag of personal opinion was somehow part of their job as a journalist.
If you want to be a real journalist then get out in the community – and that’s the real physical world, not a community website.
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Radio networking has meant the loss of hundreds of regional news jobs, which were essential training grounds for new journalists.
Print media ownership by a limited number of owners also reduced jobs as they continue to screw down staff levels to preserve profit margins.
Not that it ever would happen, but Government needs to be pressured to reintroduce legislation requiring local news production and not networked ‘fluff’ relayed from elsewhere.
A former manager told me Journalism/ PR is dead, Marketing is king in government and business. Look up public service jobs- Most are for marketing/ communications and then PR and journalism.
Also for the PS a degree is usually mandatory while decades of experience won’t get you before an interview panel.
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Reading all these stories, I guess I’m in the fortunate few. I’m currently a second year Uni student studying Journalism that landed a part-time job with a leading sports website two months before I finished High School purely by the recommendation of a few people – which was more based on personality then quality of work – which came out of the blue but very quickly came to fruition.
Timing of the job meant my school marks weren’t flash and scrapped into Uni. Part-Time job within months turned Full-Time but still with part-time pay (heaps of hours with no / little pay is spot on about Journalism).
Once you’re fortunate to grab a position, particularly one you like, you just hold on for dear life, work your backside off and establish contacts in the field as you never know what’s around the corner.
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