Finding themselves
July 1st, 2007 by Jim KillamThere’s an early episode of “The Cosby Show” where Cliff’s daughter brings a new boyfriend home. He says that once he finishes high school, he wants to take a year to find himself. And Cliff responds, “In a year, you should be able to find yourself … and three or four other people.”
In the past several years, I’ve noticed an increasing number of talented students and recent grads who don’t seem all that interested in entering – or remaining in – the journalism world. They choose to take 6 months or a year to “find themselves.” That sounds noble but it often ends up where they “find themselves” living back with their parents, paying off credit card bills they ran up in college and working at Starbucks. But … they don’t seem all that upset that they’ve left the newspaper world so soon.
Sure, there are also those driven student journalists who can spot opportunity and take advantage of it. But the balance seems to have shifted some. Even while they’re still in college, I find it harder to sell students on the idea of college media being an investment for them. For one, leisure time is something fewer students seem willing to sacrifice. Maybe that mind-set is carrying over into their first jobs.
So I’m wondering if we as advisers aren’t doing a good job of “selling” this as a career, or if more students are simply seeing something out there they don’t like.
And I’m also wondering if I sound like someone’s cranky grandpa who starts every sentence with, “In my day …”
UPDATE: Be sure to read John Robinson’s take on this topic: Finding yourselves in journalism - ed.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I also see this as a student. Speaking with past colleagues from the school newspaper and a few fellow seniors, a lot of very talented student journalists are discouraged by their school experience. They work long hours on top of their academic commitments and get frustrated.
Unfortunately, some of them don’t realize that it will be different when you get that degree and can focus on journalism and work only. I think a way advisers could help is by telling them about the good side of professional journalism, instead of slipping into near daily conversations about how print media is dying, conglomerates are ruining the newspaper world, people don’t trust journalists and they’re underpaid, etc.
Yeah, the truth is great. Student journalists should be told the truth about journalism. But not all of the truth about journalism is negative. Maybe then the students won’t spend time after college “finding themselves” because they’ll have already found their calling - whether it be continuing in journalism or not - during their time at school.
Since I started school in 2003, it’s always been a goal to get a job at a newspaper. So, from my perspective, I don’t understand the phenomenon. But advisers should remind student journalists why they chose journalism.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Oops. Got the Web site wrong.
July 1st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
A student was in my office recently, talking about the disillusionment of her first job. She’s getting to go out and report, but the newspaper covers a very affluent area, and many of her assignments have been — as she put it — “product placements.” I suggested that her next job might afford chances to cover more meaningful stories. But she seemed resigned, and already thinking about her next career.
What’s that line from Ginsburg? “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked …” Not my generation, but the up-and-coming one. Not all of them, of course. But it seems a lot of them get turned off not because they are “too good” for the entry-level stories, but rather because today’s entry-level stories can be really offensive to someone who’s just been through a bunch of classes that emphasized the importance and power of journalism.
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
Great question, and good points. I was thinking about this recently as I watched one of our top former reporters who landed a job at a pretty decent-sized regional paper here in Florida get fed up there after only 6 months and start looking at a job teaching elementary school kids. WO!
Seems like a combination of things for him, and I think in general for most: bad pay, low on totem pole, went from high involvement in college paper where he won an SPJ regional mark of excellence award to A&E fluff. I think there is such a romantic idea of journalism, but for most, they’re getting started at smaller papers where they’re not even writing obits and doing cop reports (that might be fun) but get relegated to stories on grandmas for feature sections. I think if we need to impress upon them that it’s going to be a long climb to get where they want to be — it was for me. But students also expect big rewards quicker, and sometimes they’re finding they’re going from sophisticated college publications to newspapers that are 5-10 years behind the times.
This would be a great question to wrestle with more, maybe on a larger scale (with CMA, SPJ and professional media), as I bet you’ve noticed what is a pretty wide-spread trend and that will only get more pressing as this industry tries to restock with the next generation of innovative journalist.