Jobs

Journalism Majors Seek Employment Despite Downward Trends

Miami students among those vexed by hiring decline in American newsrooms.

BY ELIZABETH HANSEN
Miami University journalism student

Journalism majors are turning to the public relations industry and start-up companies for internships and post-grad employment. In 2004, there was one journalist for every two public relations professionals. Now, for every five public relations professionals, there is only one journalist, according to the Pew Research Center.

Since he joined Miami University in 2004, Richard Campbell seen changing perspectives toward the journalism major, but not a decrease in the number of journalism graduates.

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“[Students] don’t tend to see journalism as something that’s valuable just to know about journalism,” said Campbell, chair of the Department of Media, Journalism & Film. “They see its value as a writing major that trains you, not just in writing, but also in reporting, researching and interviewing. These are all skills that are important in many jobs.”

Journalists have seen declines in job opportunities since 1990, according to data derived from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. -- Graphic by Elizabeth Hansen

According to Miami's Department of Institutional Research, among journalism graduates in 2016, 90 percent were either employed or enrolled in school by fall 2016. Of those employed, 69 percent were working in their field of study, which includes careers in communication fields.

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Junior journalism major Angela Hatcher started her journalism curriculum with the focus of becoming a foreign correspondent. But, two years into her coursework, her plans shifted.

“When I got here, I started to write for the student newspaper and I started to realize that this is not the type of news that I’m interested in,” said Hatcher. "It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be in the sense that oftentimes [for news] there’s not as much liberty in you taking your own writing style choices.”

She discovered her true interest in digital media, so chose Interactive Media Studies as her co-major and accepted a content marketing and community management internship offer at Vocatio, a Los Angeles-based start-up, best described as an “edgy Linked-In” for millennials.

Although not a traditional media outlet, Vocatio employs Hatcher's journalism skills and experience as an editor at The Miami Student and anchor for Miami Television News.

“The reason they hired me was because of my journalism portfolio, because of writing stories in print, in audio, for the web in video form…that’s something that they really, really needed,” said Hatcher.

In 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics estimated that the number of journalism jobs from 2014 to 2024 would decrease by 9 percent, while the number of public relations jobs would increase by 6 percent. This comes after an already 60 percent decrease in newspaper journalist jobs since 1990.

Jack Evans and Angela Hatcher are applying their journalism education from Miami University in different ways. -- Contributed photos

Regardless of these statistics, Jack Evans, junior journalism major and managing editor at The Miami Student, is not letting uncertainty stop him from chasing his passion. After completing an internship last summer at The Columbus Dispatch, Evans is pursuing internships at traditional outlets like The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal.

If those do not work out, he plans on contacting his local paper to work for free, just to gain experience.

“My backup is emailing the Traverse City Record Eagle in Northern Michigan and being like, ‘You don’t have to pay me, but I’ll work 25 hours a week for you,’ ” said Evans.

Evans believes working at a small paper in Traverse City, population 15,479, would give him the freedom to pursue his own ideas.

“At a small paper like that I could basically be like ‘Alright, so this is what I’m writing about this week, this is what I think is important.’ If they’re not paying me and they really don’t like It, I can put it on Facebook,” said Evans. “I think there’s a lot of stories to be told up there and opportunities to tell them.”

Although he has a plan for the summer, Evans admits to being nervous about his prospects after graduation.

“A couple weeks ago is when the stress really started to hit and I was like, 'Wow, I might not have a job,' ” he said. “Passion is important. But I want to be able to support a family. I don’t care if I’m wealthy, but I at least want to put my family somewhere in the middle class.”

But for Evans, PR is out of the question.

“I would definitely [pursue other industries] if it was that insane of a struggle,” said Evans. “But there are a couple stipulations: I wouldn’t do PR, I wouldn’t do marketing, and I probably wouldn’t do a business-related thing, I would probably go into the hospitality or food industry.”

Giving up dreams

Campbell, who advises the majority of Miami’s journalism majors, sees this frequently: Journalism students giving up their dream for employment.

“I’ve seen a lot of our students who graduated from here who wanted to be reporters but didn’t,” said Campbell. “There just weren’t enough opportunities. So I feel that in some ways we’ve lost a generation of students to the reporting field. I want to do something to stop that by making sure more young people get hired.”

Campbell is working toward the goal by launching Report for Ohio – a program that places students in local news organizations, supported by scholarships pledged by individual partners.

“You still have the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting there’s going to be this 9 percent drop in jobs, but I think we don’t really know,” said Campbell. “What we do know is that people want info. They want stories. The kind of work a journalist does is highly valued, we just don’t have a good economic or business plan for rewarding them.”

This story was produced for a Public Affairs Reporting class at Miami University.


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