From what I've been hearing over the last few weeks, there has never been a worse time to be a young, fledgling journalist. Great.
The dreaded Credit Crunch (cue Jaws music) is rearing it's ugly head again and along with the property and retail industries, the print industry is suffering. From what I can understand (which isn't a great deal - financial expert I am not), advertisers simply can't afford or don't see the point in advertising right now. As a result, there are major losses for local papers that rely on big advertisers - cue major cutbacks in journalism jobs. Bad times. To top that, from what I hear, a certain national paper is now in dire straits... So, all in all? Not looking good. Now more so than ever, if you want to succeed, you have to be the best. And to be the best... well, what does it take?
I'm quickly learning that to succeed in journalism, it's not enough to be able to write. It's not enough to want to write. Trust me, if you say that to anyone, the standard response is: "Then go and be a novelist." Which, to be honest, I wouldn't mind, but I'm not by any means ready for that yet (friends, feel free to disagree). Being a journalist, I'm learning, involves bags of determination and ruthlessness. And the word 'No' must be eradicated from your vocabulary, especially when you're starting out. People who hire journalists aren't looking for writers, they're looking for people who can find and tell stories - unique stories with unique angles, in the tightest possible way. With no frills. And to get to that point, you have to be on your toes all the time. Anyone hiring will be looking for the best, so somehow, you have to convince people that you are the best, even if you don't necessarily believe it. Clearly, there's no room for modesty in the news industry.
If I'm honest, it's pretty scary. And my skin still has to get a hell of a lot thicker before I can get there. I can take constructive criticism, but I need to learn to take NON-constructive criticism just as well ( I realised this today). I need to prepare myself for the fact that there are a lot of people out there that aren't going to like me, and aren't going to like what I write. For no other reason than the fact that they simply don't like what I do. But, I also need to hang on to the fact that for every ten, fifty, one hundred people who think what I do is crap, there might just be one person who thinks it's pretty good. There are a lot of authors and a lot of journalists that I love who a lot of people can't stand. There are people I like who others can't stand. That's not a reflection on me, or on them. It's just a matter of taste.
Take Dan Brown for example, simply because The Da Vinci Code came up in conversation in class the other day. About 80% of the class (including myself), expressed the opinion that book is pretty pants (but in not so pleasant terms). The remaining 20% LOVED it, adored it, were ready to defend it with violence (it almost got pretty ugly). It occurred to me then that Dan Brown doesn't care about the billions of people in the world who haven't bought or read the book, or the millions of people who have read it and think it's crap. He only cares about the 40 million or so who bought it and loved it.
I guess you can't please everyone. But actually, that's OK.
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So true. So true. So shouldn't that mean that we can and will succeed? Eventually? Because there's bound to be someone somewhere in the world who likes what we do. Right?
ReplyDeleteI like your style of writeing it is a good flow and it covers all major points amd brings to a cleaver and i think well thought out conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI like the after thought almost a morral to the points that you are putting accross this gives a very cleen and definate end to the piece.
I think it would be very well placed in one of the major broard sheets or formal publication.