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I started writing in high school for various blogs and my school paper, primarily about video games and other entertainment. I loved it and was really good at it, going on to major in journalism in college and getting two highly competitive video game journalism internships and two national awards for my writing.
Fast forward to today (not too long after, I just graduated in 2022), where I couldn't find any jobs in video game/entertainment journalism so I've been working for a year for a small local paper that pays me less than the Walmart deli pays my girlfriend. The work's pretty easy most of the time, it's hybrid and the hours are very flexible. I just don't care AT ALL about 90% of the stuff I write about, and especially because I almost never get serious edits and it's not like I'm paid a ton, I mostly phone in most of my articles.
I've applied to entertainment journalism and even a few PR jobs as they've come up, but nobody's bitten and I don't have any reason to believe they will anytime soon, given the state of the industry. I've seen a few better-paying job openings for general news reporting jobs, but I feel like I'd rather keep my low-paying easy job I don't care about than trade it for a better-paying hard job I still don't care about. At this point, I feel like I don't even know if I could perform to the high quality I used to hold myself to anymore.
Maybe I'm seeing a problem here when there isn't any? The pay's bad but I live in a small town with cheap rent so all my needs are met, plus a few wants here and there. It just feels like small town journalism is supposed to be the "first step" in someone's journalism journey, but I simply don't feel like I care enough or have enough skills to climb that ladder.
I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this!
Welcome to the industry. Unless you have serious connections and a good writing history, those upper-echelon jobs you covet aren't going to be immediately available to someone as fresh out of college as you are. The truth is all of us report on stuff we don't care about. It's part of the profession, and doing that kind of work is part of the experience.
You don't have to do regular journalism forever. But if you want to get those jobs you have your eye on, I would encourage you to challenge yourself and look at those general assignment jobs with a closer eye. I had an interview some months ago for a communications position with a major university. I didn't get the job, but I got the interview because the head of the department was familiar with each paper I've worked at, and he told me one of my prior bosses gave me a huge endorsement that he took seriously.
Those are the kinds of relationships you need to build in the industry to be successful in any future in communications.
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