Career in Journalism
For youths today, journalism is a particularly most exciting career field. Journalists gather information and share their stories with a potentially boundless audience, and the opportunities to do so are changing and growing all the time. Through words, videos, still photos and audio, journalists can have a profound effect on the people and communities they cover, as well as on their viewers, readers and listeners.
Traditional media outlets like newspapers and magazines have had to change and re-think the way they operate. Yesterday's image of a reporter with a pen and paper in hand has in many ways been replaced by the reality of a reporter with a flip video in hand, able to capture events and issues in several ways.
From People magazine to the Wall Street Journal, from The Onion to ABC News, media outlets across the country and all over the world are hungry for journalists with multimedia skills. Today's teens, who have grown up with the likes of YouTube and Facebook, are particularly well-equipped for jobs in this field, because digital media and social networking have been part of both their academic and social lives for perhaps as long as they can remember. What makes journalism such a dynamic career is that it offers the opportunity to cover breaking news, be recognized for writing and video skills, and—most importantly—share one's voice and the voices of others so widely.
Some multimedia journalists get jobs right out of school working for what are known as "hyperlocal'' news organizations, which cover individual communities, and serve local readers. Others have traveled around the world, video camera in hand, and captured the stories of people from across the globe, sharing them with an audience back home.
I teach introductory journalism and help set up journalism-related internships for college students in one of the largest media markets in the United States. What I hear from media outlets are pleas for students and recent graduates who combine strong writing skills, multimedia skills, reliability and a curiosity about the world at large.
Journalism schools teach students the fundamentals of writing, information gathering, and media ethics. Through classes as well as student-run newspapers, magazines, television programs and online news sites, students learn how to report, write and edit all kinds of stories – from straight news to feature/entertainment stories to analysis of issues. They learn how to file formal requests for public documents when government offices or reluctant to supply them; they learn how to get information from people who don't want to give up that information. They learn techniques that help them be resourceful both in reporting as well as in life. The students who graduate with journalism degrees have not only a diploma in hand but a body of work to show off at interviews—work that has helped even many of the most recent graduates secure highly coveted positions.
As such, an education in journalism also can serve as a backdrop for almost any field. Many of those who receive journalism undergraduate degrees go on to successful careers in law, politics, public relations, marketing, public policy and education, among a variety of other fields. An education in journalism can be considered an education in democracy and in life.
Editorial provided by Jennifer Halperin, Internship & Special Projects Coordinator for Columbia College Chicago's Journalism Department.
