Ask HN: How does one break into journalism?

7 points·zheshishei··5 comments

Journalism seems to be an ever-increasingly competitive field to enter. So, I ask the HN community, how would a recent college graduate without a journalism degree and relevant work experience work towards getting a job as a news reporter?

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It's actually pretty easy: just do the job. Open your own blog and write. Cover whatever beat you are interested in. You'll have almost no audience at first, which is normal, but ignore that. Write as if you had your dream job.

Then, you can start submitting some of your writing to more serious blogs and news organizations. Work your way up slowly. For instance, to make it to the New York Times, start with being "reprinted" in Business Insider, then HuffPo, then NYT.

PS: be aware that there is very little money in journalism. As in, ridiculously no money at all. You can work really hard day and night and make $30K/year. Or write a php website and make 4 times more.

That doesn't sound like a good idea. Journalism is already one of the college majors with the highest percentage of joblessness after graduation, and you want to compete with those unemployed graduates without the degree or a body of work? Why?

Are you prepared to not make much money? If so, you can get work, but you need to prepare yourself for what your life will be like.

Oh, that's simple to answer -- acquire a journalism degree. I say this because many people with journalism degrees as well as experience are unemployed right now, because of big changes in the publishing business brought on by online content and other factors.

As to:

> How does one break into journalism?

My advice is to prepare yourself to go in the front door like everyone else.

Email me: cyrus.farivar [at] arstechnica.com . Serious!

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