THE DARK APPEAL OF THE INDUSTRY THAT HATES ITS YOUNG
Why are so many graduates desperate to break into an industry that pays sleazy private eyes huge sums of money for phone hacking — but won’t pay its interns the minimum wage?
This summer 40,000 of the UK’s young people will graduate with qualifications in journalism or media studies — to pursue their dream of finding paid work in an industry that that doesn’t want them.
As a saturated (and shrinking) job market is flooded with new hopefuls every year, employers know they hold all the cards — and most of these graduates will find themselves working for months for free for the miniscule chance that their unpaid internship(s) will one day turn into a near-minimum-wage , ‘entry-level’ job in journalism.
As journalist Ed Caesar wrote in the Sunday Times last year, the challenge for newbies is huge:
“Today, you’ll need luck, flair, an alternative source of income, endless patience, an optimistic disposition, sharp elbows and a place to stay in London.”
No wonder the National Union of Journalists estimates that only 3% of journalists has a working class parent. And former news editor Lee Elliot Major discovered that half of the industry’s “leading figures” came from private schools (which make up only 7% of all schools).
While I have managed to earn a living as a features writer over the last 10 years, I am deeply concerned for those starting out today. Although a few decent editors remain, I have watched aghast as journalism has become an industry that delights in stealing young hopefuls’ enthusiasm and dedication and making you prove your commitment to the job in ever more sadistic ways.
I regularly hear from graduates who have been exploited and robbed by an industry that simply doesn’t value its young talent. Senior editors and management have become greedy and arrogant. Their readiness to grab your free labour without batting an eyelid — in the form of unpaid internships which see you writing, filming or editing stories for publication or transmission — is proof of this. These internships have become a rite of passage for graduates hoping to break into the industry and are ‘sold’ as an essential step in proving their commitment to a career in journalism. They promise to lead to paid work in the future — but somehow they never do.
A senior editor at one of the UK’s national broadsheets has admitted that unpaid internships are now “a fact of life” within journalism. “Interns are being used to fill the paper,” he told the Sunday Times. “If you’re struggling to have enough money to fill the pages, to have a stream of bright young people who are willing to work for fee because they want to learn something… It has become the quid pro quo.”
Other interns aren’t so lucky to be given journalism-related tasks. One former intern — who has a first class honours degree from a Russell Group university — told me that she had been expected to collect an colleague’s birthday party pictures from Boots, deliver 300 pairs of shoes to eight different London locations by hand — and pick up the editor’s dog’s ‘little accidents’ from around the office (Yes, really). At one internship she didn’t even have a chair.
Journalism interns who complain about their treatment are offered little sympathy by those who are already ‘in’. After all, many of the editors worked unpaid when they were starting out — so what’s all the fuss about? The general consensus seems to be that the young need to toughen up.
So the abused becomes the abuser. Only they forget that it’s far worse for those entering the industry now. The length of unpaid interning required before you’ll be considered for paid work is getting longer and longer. Competition is even more fierce — there are far more applicants for far fewer jobs. Working unpaid for more than a year has become completely normal.
Today’s interns are in tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt — whereas anybody who graduated before 2001 didn’t pay a penny in tuition fees. But none of this is reflected in the wages even for those who do ‘make it’. Starting salaries can be as low as £12,000 – and the average salary for journalists is £24,500.
Even before the News International scandal, traditional journalism was on its knees, thanks to the double whammy of a recession and the arrival of digital technology. Not that the industry would admit it of course — journalists are experts at managing their own PR and maintaining the myth that being a journalist is the best job in the world. But anybody who has tried to break into this industry in recent years knows the truth. Something is very, very wrong with our journalism industry.
Today Graduate Fog asks: is journalism’s ‘take what you can’ culture sustainable? Does an industry so willing to shaft its young workers deserve to survive? And should journalism graduates turn their backs on this industry and instead find one that values their hard work and talent — and actually has a future?
The answer to this is to go freelance, who wants to end up working for a scurrilous rag owned by an Australian dictatorial mega-tycoon anyway? I’d rather just get by and be respected than sell my soul to the devil incarnate. Heard today that Brookes has resigned, now all we need is Murdoch’s head on a plate, and the sooner the better…
I’m a journalist, or at least I’ve wanted to be since I was 10. After completing my MA in Journalism, I’ve found it impossible to find paid work, and a challenge to find unpaid work as well! It was demoralising and demotivating, so to answer your question, no I’m not sure that I want to be a journalist anymore! I’ve done quite a few unpaid internships, most of which were a complete waste of my time. I didn’t stay till the end of the day on an internship with a glossy magazine at the beginning of this year. I was handed a booklet about how to photocopy pages and in which order to staple the articles together (everyone had a different order they preferred).
I am currently doing a NMW-paid internship but it isn’t challenging. I have always looked forward to having a career in journalism in London. Now I feel like it is probably much more trouble than it is worth – not that I am being lazy, but I am saying this because I have applied to hundreds of jobs in the last few months and to no avail…
I was happy to read your article on this subject as you have voiced exactly what I have been thinking about for the past year.
I think what a lot of this applies to is print journalism, arguably with magazines, TV and radio it is a different (but still competitive and difficult) ball game.
I wanted to be a journalist back at school, but then I started meeting them and talking to them, and nearly every single one, without intending to, put me off ever going into that industry.
Like Robin (and I broadly go along with what he says) I’m a freelance journalist. I chose it because I enjoy it AND because it’s the best match for my skills and abilities (frankly, it’s all I’m good at – I know, because I’ve tried second careers to little avail!). In my view that’s a perfectly sensible reason, and I wouldn’t want to put off anyone in my position. The problem with journalism (and other over-subscribed sectors) is that too many people are in it for the *wrong* reasons. If more grads asked themselves honestly: “Is this really the best possible match for my skills and am I realistic about what it involves?” maybe we’d get a smaller but more diverse workforce, and lose the nasty perception of journalism (along with fashion, the arts and PR) as a playground for the rich and thick, which is largely what’s driving the kind of exploitation that this piece describes.
It goes to show the undeniable lack of social mobility in journalism. It’s not okay for it to be an accepted fact that every other industry pays interns, but journalism does not. It’ll just ensure that, yet again, the power/money/influence will stay in the hands of a tiny percentage of southern, middle class people. If you’re from anywhere further north than Cambridge it’s a case of finding somewhere to stay in London, somehow finding the funds to pay for it, and in my case having to extend my overdraft to its maximum, spending money I don’t have on internships, and having no job after just graduating from a Russell Group!
It made me laugh a lot that The Guardian very hypocritically linked to this website… I’ve been on work experience there and I did nothing journalistic, I spent 3 straight days sitting in a cupboard tidying up hangers. Obviously unpaid.
They have hundreds of Macs in the HQ, state of the art architecture, designer sofas etc. but they can’t even fork out £40 for train tickets for a recently graduated (student loan-less!) aspiring journalist.
Might I add, that was only with a specific section at The Guardian. I’ve also been on work exp with other sections within the paper which did not make me sit in any cupboards, and did actually let me do journalism-orientated stuff, yay.
Where’s Kate Spicer on this subject?
Why is it always assumed that you have to go to London to be a journalist? Of course the competition to get into the big media organisagions will be insane, so why not start small and work your way up? Sites like HoldtheFrontPage always have adverts for trainee reporters on local and regional papers. The work is far from glamorous and you might have to move to a town you’ve never heard of, but it’s a foot on the ladder and once you get experience you can look for bigger and better jobs. I’ve avoided London like the plague and have never been out of work, nor have I had to work for free for months on end.
Dear Sir or Madam,
Half of the problem is the companies that hire wordsmiths (copywriters/proofreaders/script editors, journalists etcetera); don’t know what they are doing either; leadership from the top or a shafting from the bottom… the choice, as they used to say on Blind Date, – is yours!
Merry Christmas and Best for 2016
Dan Smith
MCPS-PRS
BASCA
M.U. -mds
Local Music Ltd (sole trader)
There seems to be more work in scientific publishing than the mainstream. Could be an idea to do a masters in something cool like forensic science and if that doesn’t work out then go the publishing route.