How to Succeed in Journalism when You Can't Afford an Internship

An essay about money, class, determination and whether journalism is becoming a glamor industry.

Via Random House (Canada):

To be a writer in this market requires not only money, but a concept of “work” that is most easily gained from privilege. It requires a sense of entitlement, the ability to network and self-promote without seeing yourself as an arrogant, schmoozing blowhard. And it requires you to think of working for free—at an internship, say, or on one of those gratis assignments that seem to be everywhere now—as an opportunity rather than an insult or a scam.

This is no longer an industry that rewards working-class values, in other words, and I underestimated how hard it would be to shuck them. It still seems strange to me that people work, unpaid, without a guaranteed job at the end. And I haven’t reconciled myself with the central irony here: that journalism, ostensibly a populist endeavour, is becoming a rarefied practice best suited, both financially and psychologically, to the well-off.

Alexandra Kimball, How to Succeed in Journalism when You Can’t Afford an Internship.

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  1. greenlinechillin reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    There is so much of this that is so painfully relevant to my life and (hopefully budding) career. “The world of...
  2. math-erin reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
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  7. awez reblogged this from supersoygrrrl and added:
    Fucking relevant.
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  13. serpentmound reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    hm
  14. victoria27 reblogged this from robot-heart-politics
  15. newsfromredlips reblogged this from theethird
  16. temptingmind reblogged this from titotito
  17. rachelcstella reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    This reflection makes you think. Sobering.
  18. heavenisatruck reblogged this from robot-heart-politics and added:
    CC: Just about any job that is not in the service industry.
  19. beforethenightisover reblogged this from robot-heart-politics and added:
    Part of the reason I’m taking so many internships is that I’m terrified I won’t be able to be hired after college and...
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