Journalism Degree? What Were You Thinking?!

There's a great piece in the Village Voice about J School graduates seeking work in a questionable economy. Given the posts Craig and I have been doing about the state of journalism in the wake of the Cronkite death, I thought this piece an interesting boost of optimism from aspiring Millennial Journalists.

Even though a career in journalism "makes as much sense as signing up for a career as a Pontiac dealer," it seems the hard times are no match for a generation hell bent on reviving the profession with a boost of technology and a new fresh approach. Millennials to the rescue!

Malia Politzer's "concentration was new media and investigative journalism. "I'm a bit of a technophobe," Politzer says, so she was glad to be pushed to learn how to make websites, shoot and edit video, build flash sites, and use multimedia in her reporting. . . She had already worked as an intern at The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong and had the opportunity to be a freelance writer covering the Beijing Olympics.

Despite the optimism, however, all of the young people interviewed aren't in full time post-grad jobs. They've scored sweet internships and key fellowships, but that hasn't actually translated into a salary with benefits.

"Being a reporter in New York is like being an actor in Hollywood," says Aïda Alami, 25, a native of Marrakesh who was a magazine major. "I needed a degree to get ahead a bit and meet people and make contacts."

Despite jobs at MTV, Google News, the 2004 Kerry Campaign, and a graduate degree from Columbia Chikodi Chima can't get his new blog funded.

"In January, I launched a blog called TechTrotter to investigate start-up hot spots of the developing world," he says. "I wanted to see where innovation is happening off the radar of the mainstream American media." ...He generates most of the content, but says that if he were to launch his own company, it would be "a subscription-based fact-checking service that hires unemployed journos to double-check blog posts" before they're published."

The major problem with new journalists who are armed to the gills with tech experience and knowledge, is that so many papers still haven't figured "it" out. As Jack Schafer from Slate notes back in January,

The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes ...was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift.

Perhaps, they should employ some of these new enthusiastic grads for some outside of the box ideas.