Journicide 12/02/2009
 
Alan Mutter coined an apt term for what is happening in the journalism world right now, "journicide." He used in a blog post talking about the bleak media landscape young journalists are coming into. He addresses some of the same issues that have been frustrating me in my job search. One is the lack of jobs. I don't know any journalism student who entered college thinking "I want to get paid minimum wage working for a blog." We thought we'd start out at a small paper and work our way up. I didn't anticipate having to put .com at the end of my employer's name. Now I'm more open to the idea. I fully recognize that the job I went to college for no longer exists. I've seen brilliant young journalists leave the profession and the loss disturbs me. I'll be interested to see the ultimate impact of this 'journicide.'

Here is a passage from Alan's post. Read the entirety at Reflection of a Newsosaur.
"As bad as things are for still-working and formerly employed journalists – and they are bad – the opportunities are even worse for journalists seeking their first gigs. There are two reasons:

First, young journalists trying to land entry-level jobs find themselves competing with seasoned pros who have been knocked off perches higher up in the food chain.

Second, the miserable state of the media business has combined with a sharp increase in the supply of available journalists to reduce compensation to humiliatingly low levels.

As a consequence, young journalists looking for opportunities to start careers – even the idealistic eager ones celebrated here by David Carr – are looking at an almost universally bleak economic landscape.

Salaried, entry-level positions at traditional news organizations are almost entirely unavailable, because the organizations are trying to avoid laying off any more staffers than they already have.

This leaves phalanxes of young journalists to compete among themselves for low- or no-pay internships and highly exploitive freelance opportunities that typically promise rich “exposure” but scant, if any, hard cash."
 


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