Out of all the craptastic jobs out there, you wouldn’t think being a journalist was the worst job ever would you? I didn’t, so it came as a shock when a company called Career Cast put news reporter on the top of their list based on pay, outlook, work environment, and stress. Career Cast analyzed over 200 professions and gathered data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census, Bureau, trade association studies and other sources to come to their conclusion.
I wrote about my three bad jobs that made me who I am today, and I would easily choose being a journalist over working at McDonald’s, being an office removals man, or a admin assistant in charge of stuffing envelopes for nine hours a day, any day! But as I got to thinking more about the journalism profession I’m beginning to see the light.
WHY BEING A NEWS REPORTER / JOURNALIST IS THE WORST
* Uninspiring pay. With a median salary of $36,000 as of 2010, there’s not too much to get excited about making $3,000 a month. Some bloggers make $36,000 in a month, whereas I’ve never heard of a straight up journalist making multiple six figures.
* Caged bird. News reporters just report the news. You can’t add editorial comments at all out of fear of offending anybody. Sometimes I wonder why news stations just don’t hire robots to tell us what happened. At least there is opportunity for journalists to write stories.
* Negative growth. Reporter and correspondent positions are expected to decline by 8 percent from 51,900 jobs in 2010 to 48,000 in 2020, for a total of nearly 4,000 jobs lost, says the U.S. Department of Labor Nothing feels worse than negative progress in one’s career or industry.
* The rise of bloggers. I wrote a pretty lengthy piece on how bloggers and journalists can collaborate and help each other win. I e-mailed the story directly to 10 journalists and journalism professors and only two out of 10 responded. Furthermore, there were only a couple comments out of 40+ comments from those with journalism experience in the post. Journalists either don’t wish to collaborate, have their heads in the sand, think I’m a waste of time, or all three. If journalists don’t want to work together, fine. Bloggers will eat your breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.
* Not the owners of their domain. Unlike journalists, bloggers not only create their own content but also own their platform. Bloggers must manage the business and creative side of things. If you don’t own your own domain, you seldom have any editorial control. As a result, frustration will inevitably seep in.
THINK AGAIN ABOUT THAT JOURNALISM DEGREE OR FELLOWSHIP
If you’re planning on spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to get a journalism degree, or take one year of your life to get a journalism fellowship, it’s best you start with very low expectations of finding a decent paying job, or a job at all after graduation. Even with an absolute massacre of the journalism industry, the old way of doing business is slow to change because senior leaders of any journalism organization do not embrace the new as quickly as necessary.
I very much wanted to create a collaborative portal for both bloggers and journalists to thrive. Based on the lack of interest from journalists for my idea, it’s clear I shouldn’t waste my money or time. If traditional journalists don’t want to tap the potential millions of dollars in extra online revenue they can earn from bloggers, then so be it. I will say that the key benefit of getting a journalism degree is learning how to communicate better. Communication skills cannot be underestimated.
Take a look at some “innovation proposals” by 2014 journalism fellows at Stanford below. These are supposed to be the best and brightest ideas from traditional media professionals today.
“A free, live-blog platform optimized for smartphones and tablets.” – There’s a plugin called MobilePress every blogger can install in 5 seconds.
“An open-source, online training platform for teaching coding and data skills to journalists.” – You can go to HTML.net or any number of websites that teach free basic coding. Or you can just read WordPress for dummies. I’m a dummy and I figured this whole online media thing out.
“To use the innovative strengths and contemporary challenges of the modern alternative weekly newspaper as a platform for exploring new revenue models in local journalism.” – There’s affiliate income, buzz marketing income, CPC income, CPM income, sponsored content income etc.
“A website that applies indigenous perspectives and wisdom to current environmental stories and issues.” – How about just start a blog about environmental stories and issues from your perspective?
“A teaching platform that provides tools for journalists as they serve America’s new “normal” demographic.” – Not sure how to serve the new normal demographic when it is undefined, and when the author does not speak in such demographic language.
As you can see from the proposals, our best traditional media personnel are somewhat behind the times compared to those of us who are actively publishing and implementing new readership and monetization strategies every single day. Coming up with a original proposal is not easy, but I was expecting something more.
For those of you who are professional bloggers, be proud, no matter how much old school journalists ignore or look down on you. We are the creators of original content and the owners of our platform. NEVER think you do not belong. We are new media and we are here to stay!
Top 10 Worst Jobs
1) News reporter – You bet.
2) Lumberjack – Dangerous.
3) Enlisted Military – Aren’t paid or taken care of enough.
4) Actress – Whatever happened to Stiffler and his mom?
5) Oil Rig Worker – Dirty bird.
6) Dairy Farmer – Squeeze. Too many hormones.
7) Meter Reader – Everything is going electronic.
8) Mail Carrier – Don’t go postal.
9) Roofer – Hope you get a great view.
10) Flight Attendant – At least you and your family can see the world for free.
Top 10 Best Jobs
1) Actuary – Boring as heck!
2) Biomedical Engineer – Got to be smart.
3) Software Engineer – Got to be nerdy.
4) Audiologist – What?
5) Financial Planner – I can dig it.
6) Dental Hygienist – Yuck.
7) Occupational Therapist – Ouch my back. Give me a $1,000 Heron Miller chair.
8) Optometrist – Lots of school necessary. Let’s go laser surgery.
9) Physical Therapy – Helpful, but insurance reimbursements going down.
10) Computer Systems Analyst – Hmmmm, still? Guess it depends what type.
THE BEST JOB ON EARTH
Blogger – Intellectually stimulating if you write intellectually stimulating stuff. Modern day penpals with potentially thousands of people around the world. Low overhead and maintenance costs. Can be done from anywhere there’s internet connection. Can be completed farmed out if you don’t want to do anything, even the writing. Highly lucrative once traffic crosses 250,000 pageviews a month. Empowering. Mysterious. Misunderstood. Exciting!
If you hate your job, you should really consider figuring out how to negotiate a severance and be free to do something you truly love to do.
It’s been six years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good passive income stream online now. The top 1% of all posts on Financial Samurai generates 31% of all traffic. The average age of the top 1% posts is 2.3 years old. In other words, after putting in the hours to write some very meaty content over two years ago, 10 posts consistently generate a monthly recurring income stream that’s completely passive.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. Who knows where your new adventure will take you in 2015 and beyond!
Regards,
Sam
Updated 2/16/2015
I love physical therapy. Great job. You have to be smart there too but not like a brain. It’s more intuition based. My dental hygienist is the absolute best. I would recommend everyone come to NYC and use her. Reporters are being replaced by bloggers. :)
…I must admit that I was a communications major for my undergrad (more interested in radio production than journalism). I found out early on that local reporters make very little and, of course, a lot of people think they want to do it, so very fierce competition. Luckily I was able to eek out a marketing minor to get into other things. So, this actually doesn’t surprise me.
I’ll have to wait to comment on blogging being the best job on earth. Haven’t been doing it long enough. I always thought being a rock star was supposed to be the best job on earth :).
Nothing wrong w/ being a comm major given the comm skills one picks up. Just worried about the future of the industry for those considering it now. Need to start a Blogging Major.
Ah yes… rock star could be good! One show a year though max.
I had a friend who studied communications in college. He’s now a manager at Merrill Lynch selling annuities.
I have a feeling you had way too much fun writing this up.
Newspapers are getting crushed by a decline in classified ads. Call it the “Craigslist effect” – it’s a secular trend that won’t end. It’s only beginning.
You hit on a key point in that journalism lacks an opinion and the author’s perspective. Combine that with falling budgets and you have zero dollars flowing into investigative journalism. What do journalists really do any more but rewrite news you’ve already read? There’s no money for anything else! I can’t imagine how boring that must be.
My local paper is clearly feeling the pinch. We don’t bother to subscribe any more. All the news is written by interns; there are only a handful of full-time staff writers. That’s what I’ve heard from friends that temporarily worked in the office. It’s also down to a few pages per section. Page size shrunk by 25% in 2009. Now it advertises itself as a way to get coupons. Things must be bad.
Frankly, the only “journalism” that is truly impressive any more are the articles in the Wall Street Journal, and, as much as I hate to admit it, the NY Times (NY Slimes). For example, Dan Neil’s automotive column in the WSJ is my favorite read, and I’m not even someone you’d call a “car person.” CBS’s 60 Minutes is still impressive. As for the rest of it, it’s purely fodder for the bored and unimaginative.
Probably nothing worse for a creative type to NOT be able to write or say what s/he thinks. Caged bird with a view of blue skies.
I’ll have to take a look at Dan Neil’s auto column. I love cars!
I surprised teacher didn’t fall into either list -sometimes it’s deemed as the worst job ever, and others it’s the best. I personally love my job, but am also glad I can blog if I ever go crazy! ;)
Being a teacher with a wealthy spouse could be numero uno!
Insightful and funny post Sam. I have no desire to be a news reporter. News photographer maaaybe but it wouldn’t be as fun being able to take pictures of whatever I wanted. I know someone who’s a news reporter/anchor. She likes what she does but the hours, stress, and pay are terrible. Plus job security is low so she’s always having to relocate which is exhausting. I’ll take blogging over news reporter any day!
The longer I blog, the more I think blogging is the best job in the world and I don’t even make any money from it!
LOL, nice! Well imagine once the big bucks start rolling in? Cloud 9 baby!
The journalism industry is in a sad state, both print and broadcast. A lot needs to change in order to get reporting back to where it needs to be. However, I don’t regret my journalism degree for a second. It really helped me mature as a writer and learn skills for a variety of fields.
Another issue, plenty of people (including yours truly) are putting content out without any compensation, so it’s a threat to the journalism industry. People are literally willing to do their jobs for free.
Thanks for sharing. The best use of any undergrad degree, whatever it is, is to teach us how to think, learn, and communicate. I forgot journalism potentially making people better communicators, which is an underrated skill imo!
I’ve had persoal experience with journalist and from what I gathered they’re all rabid dogs! They chomp at the bit for the latest and greatest story and would disregard their own mother to get it. I don’t know what it is but when you’re interacting with them it’s like the twilight zone. The things and questions that come out of their mouths while they keep a straight face is absolutely incredible. Of course this is all based on my own experience but I’d be curious to hear about anyone else’s experience with journalist.
Rabid dogs, LOVE IT! My experience hasn’t been quite that exciting but getting the latest scoop on ADD sure is common. Reporting the news is competitive and endless. Nothing evergreen here!
I think being a blogger is one of the best jobs in the world. It’s great to be able to share your story/ideas/etc and get paid for it. What could be better?
I’m shocked by some of those journalism ideas – they are really behind the times…it’s no wonder that newspapers and traditional media are dying!
I was equally shocked and scratching my head.
It’s like the whole online media movement is passing them by. Maybe 5 years ago such ideas would have been OK. But not now.
I’m not sure that I would recommend many of the traditional income sources for bloggers to journalists. Things like sponsored posts and affiliate links could create a reputation of “selling out.”
What are your suggestions on how they can make money?
Well, other revenue sources of bloggers are still available. Contextual advertising. Write books that go into further detail on popular news stories.
[…] Unlike being a journalist, bloggers have it a different – we are encouraged to share our perspective and not just report the news. This was key. […]
The deadlines would kill me! It is one of the reasons I stay ahead of the game. Funny how print media is dying and there are still a demand for (print) books. I guess that will change with all the ebook readers eventually. There seems to be a trend in news opinion on TV. You need to understand the bias whether it is conservative on Fox or liberal on MSN.
It all sounds great until you bring up Career Cast. What type of authority is Career Cast? Never heard of it myself. I’m curious where you got the info for the data you say that their article referenced. Because the article doesn’t make any such claims. You would think a site claiming a 25 year anniversary of said report would cite its data sources, no?
And that brings up the journalist vs. blogger debate which should be obvious. Bloggers opine on all kinds of shit regardless of relevance or accuracy. Any blogger can make up a top 200 list and claim journalism as the worst profession. I have nothing against blogging or journalism but if a journalist wrote the list s/he would have cited multiple sources of information.
It’s the difference between information and accurate information. There are enough idiots in the world, too many apparently, that believe anything they read regardless of doing additional research. Any schmuck can opine about nonsense. It doesn’t make it true.
It should make you question whether you can trust a blogger?
Trust no one!
Hah! I actually started out as a journalism major but moved over to psychology when I discovered the terrible hours & low pay. I was attracted to the idea of being able to write about important and interesting things that would challenge people but realize that none of these things would likely be in my control. Now I have discovered blogging and have the best of all worlds.
[…] If there is an underpresentation of Asians in journalism, a profession most recently voted as the worst occupation in America, then is it any wonder why the media doesn’t write about Asian issues? How is a non-Asian […]
Journalism is an interesting field, lots of stress, deadlines, low pay….. but you can get access and publicity. Just depends what’s important to the individual. It always starts with one’s own values and priorities.