I’ve just graduated from journalism school (in Canada) and pretty much only the rich kids from my class actually intend to work in journalism. They don’t need a steady income like the working class ones. The poorer folk like me are all searching out more stable jobs in communications, PR, and technical writing. The only people I know who were able to foray into journalism during j-school were able to because they had fluff summer jobs at their daddy’s company or no job at all, no scholarships with super strict grade requirements to maintain, and thus lots of time to work on freelance pieces and unpaid internships.
In first year we had this guest speaker, an editor from a big American daily, and one of the students asked him for advice on getting internships in journalism. No joke, his recommendation was “ask your parents, and your parents friends!” as if we’re all somehow related to the editor of the Globe and Mail. My dad’s an industrial worker and my mum works for minimum wage. It was the first time I felt like I was being told to give up and go away because I was poor. But it wasn’t the last. I was treated with condescension and like I wasn’t worth bothering with by a huge number of my wealthy classmates — the ones who will actually be journalists, thanks to their privilege — and it put me off the industry as a whole.
_psychedalek_22 karma
I’ve just graduated from journalism school (in Canada) and pretty much only the rich kids from my class actually intend to work in journalism. They don’t need a steady income like the working class ones. The poorer folk like me are all searching out more stable jobs in communications, PR, and technical writing. The only people I know who were able to foray into journalism during j-school were able to because they had fluff summer jobs at their daddy’s company or no job at all, no scholarships with super strict grade requirements to maintain, and thus lots of time to work on freelance pieces and unpaid internships.
In first year we had this guest speaker, an editor from a big American daily, and one of the students asked him for advice on getting internships in journalism. No joke, his recommendation was “ask your parents, and your parents friends!” as if we’re all somehow related to the editor of the Globe and Mail. My dad’s an industrial worker and my mum works for minimum wage. It was the first time I felt like I was being told to give up and go away because I was poor. But it wasn’t the last. I was treated with condescension and like I wasn’t worth bothering with by a huge number of my wealthy classmates — the ones who will actually be journalists, thanks to their privilege — and it put me off the industry as a whole.
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