Yes, There are Still Journalism Jobs to be Had

From Journalism 2.0:

Yes, there are still good journalism jobs to be had

Posted: 30 Sep 2009 08:56 AM PDT

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked when speaking to college journalists or young professionals is about jobs. How do I get one? Do they exist? What kind should I look for?

It’s natural to worry about how you will take your passion and training and turn it into a salary so you can afford such luxuries as food and heat. Those of my generation who entered the job market in 1991 know what you’re up against. That was a time of recession, as well, but we didn’t have the opportunities that digital media offer budding journalists today.

Consider the experience of Jon Glass who teaches and manages the Collaborative Media Room at Syracuse University. Glass is the former online editor of the Palm Beach Post so he knows how the professional news game works. Last year’s grads did quite well in landing interesting journalism jobs, despite the recession and significant downturn at most news companies.

“The common thread is that they entered college on a traditional journalism path but shifted gears late in college enough to land a full-time position where they jobs are in media companies,” Glass told me via email, where he also provided the following overview:

Lauren Bertolini (@MsLaurenRae) graduated with a newspaper degree in May 2008 and took a calculated risk by accepting an unpaid internship as a social media coordinator for NBC Local, which helps run the Web sites in major markets such as New York, Chicago and Miami (ex. http://www.nbcnewyork.com). This was a new position so she became the voice of their social media efforts on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and more. By summer’s end Lauren was offered a job for at least the next year as NBC Local’s social media editor.

Christine Petrozzo (@capetroz ) was a standout magazine major when she graduated in 2008. She took an internship with NBCOlympics.com before the 2008 Summer Olympics and stayed with the NBC family later that fall when she moved to IVillage.com where she’s an associate Web producer.

Sunnivie Brydum (@sunnivie) thought she’d be writing for a magazine until her final semester this year when she crash-coursed herself on Twitter, blogging and multimedia reporting. Sunnivie had interned at Out Front Colorado and started blogging for them again before leaving Syracuse. Soon after graduation in May, she was hired as full-time Web editor given editorial control of http://www.outfrontcolorado.com.

Dipti Khatri-Kapadia graduated with a broadcast journalism degree in 2008. Dipti tried to land a full-time reporting job at a local TV station in the Northeast but eventually her marriage took her to London. Passionate about doing multimedia work, this past summer Dipti landed the first-ever digital producer job for WSJ.com Europe based in London.

Jon Davenport (@JonDavenport1) already knew the media industry was rapidly changing so spent his year in the Magazine-Newspaper-Online master’s program learning anything he could from multimedia reporting to Flash to site and code development. The investment paid off in that he landed a job late this summer as Online Editor for the Glens Falls Post-Star — http://www.post-star.com — where he’s using all those skills.