By Alison Klein
It’s Wednesday in the middle of Seattle’s rainy winter. Josh Kelety, a student at Seattle Central College, pedals several miles through the wet city to his newsroom internship. It’s unpaid work five days a week. It’s grueling. And the number of paying job opportunities out there—once he’s wrapped up his education and internships—have been declining since the year 2000. That’s almost the entire time he’s been alive.
Kelety is part of this generation of youth who still want to tell stories despite the massive changes in the industry. They’re defiantly embracing a profession that takes a beating year after year, and America needs them more than ever due to increasing challenges in the media landscape.
It’s no secret that the news industry has turned upside down in the last 20 years. When we look at the statistics, the reports get direr: The U.S. has lost about 1,350 reporters a year since year 2000—purging the numbers from 65,000 to 45,000 people who call themselves reporters, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At this rate, the same agency forecasts journalists will be extinct by the year 2050 unless anything changes in the industry.
Considering these numbers, it almost doesn’t make sense that thousands of talented and driven young people are graduating from journalism and communications schools each year, entering the fray, determined to become reporters no matter how doom-and-gloom the numbers are. Take Grace Lee, a journalism student at the University of Washington: “I want to make an impact. This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” she says. Just like Grace, other youths are determined about the profession. They want to thrive in this industry and help make things better.
Just because there are no entry-level jobs at, traditional media does not mean fresh graduates cannot publish their stories and work as journalists. Young people are honing their craft in nontraditional ways using social media such as Medium, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as personal publishing platforms. Beyond that, online-only news operations are growing. “While there have been major cuts to print jobs, there has been a substantial amount of hiring on the digital side, and there has been a slew of new publications, from BuzzFeed to Vox to ProPublica,” says David Abel, a journalist at the Boston Globe.
“Young journalists need to be persistent in writing and pitching. They have to make themselves known,” says Mike Rosenberg, a 31-year-old reporter from California. Indeed, there are more ways than ever for people to make themselves known.
“The kids who are coming out of college today are so much better prepared to create the next great thing on day one,” says Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of news nonprofit The Texas Tribune. “The barriers to entry have been obliterated.” The tools, data and platforms that are available to students today are either daunting or liberating.
For this reason, journalism education is critical. By encouraging students to innovate and by teaching them how educators play perhaps the most important role of all. “No matter how hard it is to get a good journalism job these days, the skills remain vital,” says Abel, “particularly now in this digital transition, when ideally more people will be trained to tell stories thoughtfully, deeply, with skepticism and nuance.”
The health of democracy depends on these young people. A shrinking reporter population and a public that by-and-large does not trust the media is proof of the uphill battle that we face. However, the young people swimming upstream in spite of it all instills a great sense of hope and underscores the need for all to educate and encourage the new generation.
