I often wonder that if, when I was 10-years-old, someone had taken me aside and told me just what long hours, poor pay and stress my career choice of journalism was to offer whether I would have stuck to my decision.
But no one did, and 10-year-old me grew up and went though school, college and university and wound up as… a journalist.
I’m now 28-years-old and it’s been the only job I’ve ever known, I went straight from my degree course in journalism to a position as a trainee journalist on a newspaper where I spent time doing work experience. I’m still at the same paper seven years later, only now I’m an Assistant News Editor.
I often fantasise what it would be like to work sensible hours (I’m often finishing and 7pm and in work by 5.30am the next day). And also, what is would be like to have weekends off.
In my most fed up moments I’ve looked at job adverts. I’ve even considered selling myself to the dark world of PR.
It would offer better pay, better hours, ergo a better quality of life. But then I ask the question would it excite me? Would everyday be guaranteed to be different? And then I stop looking and go to bed because I’ve decided it wouldn’t …and anyway I have to get up at 5am.
Journalism (in particular newspaper journalism) is one of the few industries where people feel they have the right to tell you you’re rubbish. That you twist facts, that you glory in all the bad stuff in the world.
But it’s not the case.
I glory in knowing what is going on in the world and doing a professional job in telling other people that too. I’ve never told a lie in print. That’s fact.
Yes, I admit, it’s exciting when you get a verdict on a murder trial, when a suspected terrorist has been arrested by the police in your patch or when you’re trying to find out the details of a murder that’s just happened.
But the good stuff is just as good – for example, speaking to someone who has beaten all odds to survive or someone who, because of your intervention, will get the life-saving medication they need.
I revel in the fact that I can be dealing with a hard-headed billionnaire businessman in the morning and the afternoon will be taken up by a dog that’s won a place on a TV show because it can dance.
What other job could give me that? And that’s my answer. Journalism, it’s just the job for me.
Filed under: It's all about me, journalism | Tagged: journalism, newspapers, writer, writing
On my journalism course in Cardiff we’ve been told to look at being a journalist as a way of life: news never stops, even at five in the morning! And during my desperate job search, I have even considered selling my soul to PR since it’s such a competitive industry! But that’s got to show just how many people want to work as a journalist. Thought you might be interested in these blogs I found, which has comments from people who talk about what they love about being a journalist and what they hate about being a journalist!
http://happyjournalist.com/blog/2008/02/29/happy/#comments
http://angryjournalist.com/
Maybe it’s my mood today but I liked happy journalist more
And yes, news never does stop but I do make a point of avoiding all newspapers and news programmes when I’m on holiday – it’s the only way I can regain my sanity.
That’s why I tend to take holidays where there’s no TV and patchy mobile reception!
DO NOT sell yourself to PR. Don’t do it. There is not a day that goes by when I don’t miss it. I tell you what, I was so proud to be a journalist, and to know that I was making a difference. I really cared about the paper and the community. Everyone has a story to tell and it was a privilege to help them tell it. In the bad times, remember the good times
It was a momentary lapse after a very bad day!
I think the thing that will stop me going into PR is the knowledge that if I do the better hours and better pay will stop me going back into journalism ever…
That is so true. I feel completely trapped now – although I should add that better hours and better pay do go a long way to make up for that!
[...] I’m in when you ask me. Journalism can be exciting, stressful, demanding and unsociable. But, as I’ve blogged before, I doubt I’d swap it for anything [...]