Anyone who has worked in news, especially in a small market or independent newsroom, has undoubtedly asked themselves why in the world they decided to pursue journalism as a career.
It’s a job with long hours, often little pay, a lack of interest or open hostility from the general public and, to top it all off, the job prospects seem to be declining all the time.
That question is at the heart of a new book by Matthew Powers, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Sandra Vera-Zambrano, a member of the National Research System in Mexico City. “The Journalist’s Predicament: Difficult Choices in a Declining Profession” explores the challenges facing the profession and why people are still compelled to take it up.
At its core, the predicament is the “self-conviction every day that what journalists do is worth what they’re doing,” Vera-Zambrano says. “They’re waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘I get low pay, I don’t get good conditions, people don’t like me, I do many things for them and I don’t get much recognition, but it’s worth it. I like what I do. I have a passion, it’s wired in my soul and I keep going.’ It’s very contradictory, to know these difficulties that entail doing journalism and still doing it.”
Powers says he thinks of the concept as “the struggle every journalist faces every day to convince themselves that the career they’re in is worth their while, despite all of the reasons that exist to get out of it, or not get into it in the first place. …Everyone faces this problem, but not in the same way and with the same set of circumstances. Even if you graduated from Columbia Journalism School and go into the workforce with an internship or two under your belt, you’re still facing this issue of convincing yourself that it’s worthwhile.”
Powers and Vera-Zambrano have worked together on academic articles for a number of years before realizing they kept circling around this question of why people go into journalism these days when there seems to be so much stacked against it.
“This seems like a really basic question, but it’s really taken for granted,” Powers says. “There’s a lot discussed about funding models, platforms and technologies, a lot discussed about fake news and misinformation, but that rests on the fact that there are thousands of people who wake up every day and think it’s worth my while to be a journalist.”
Vera-Zambrano conducted studies in France while Powers spoke with journalists in the United States. While there were some notable differences — layoffs don’t happen among news organizations in France like they do in the United States. Also, while there’s a widespread culture of start-ups and experimentation across the U.S. that kind of DIY journalism only really has a foothold in Paris — the commitment journalists feel to their job and career was confirmed in both locations.
Another commonality is among women in journalism, who admitted to having tough decisions to make, generally in their 30s. It became a question of whether they could stay in journalism and have a family, or if they needed to consider a different line of work in order to support themselves and their family. The question of whether a career in journalism is viable in the city where someone lives or whether they’d be willing to move for better opportunities also was found in both countries.
But when Powers talking to his students, he tries to walk a fine line between realism and optimism.
“We have a responsibility to be honest with students while also sharing our own passions and the very real and exciting opportunities,” he says. “The challenge I face is to not sugarcoat a difficult reality and have students be aware of the realities that the job market is difficult, the pay is low, the hours are long, the demands are high, you don’t always get to do the things, initially, that you got into it to do. But there are people who go to the University of Washington who study journalism and go on to do journalism and are successful. There are people who do succeed. We try to get students to learn from those without forgetting the broader picture.”
