Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
Greenslade today posts on “exploitation” of aspiring journalists on unpaid work experience. He’s entirely right, we all regard it as part and parcel of getting into the business - fashion magazines are particularly notorious, with the “job description” of work experience limited to sorting, receiving and sending clothes from the cupboard. Ouch. I’ve been much luckier with work exp - not wanting to go into fashion helps - but find generally the less formalised the work experience, and the fewer workies around the office, the better the work on offer.
Of much more interest were Greenslade’s thoughts on work experience acting as a barrier to those from lower-income backgrounds:
“Only the rich can afford to work for months without pay on magazines - and at newspapers, TV channels and radio stations.”
This is absolutely true as far as it goes, but the difficulties of getting into journalism if you’re not from a financially secure background goes much deeper. Most entrants into journalism are not just graduates, but also complete a postgraduate diploma. Increasingly postgraduate courses are changing to one-year MAs rather than shorter, cheaper, PgDips. Bursaries and financial support is not common, though City is trying to find sources of funding for scholarships in the future.
Just getting an undergraduate degree is a significant barrier to many on lower incomes, and research has suggested that bursaries are little use, as the earnings loss at A-level is the real barrier. Still fewer can afford to forgo an extra year’s earnings, not to mention finding £6300 (City) in fees plus living costs, to take a postgraduate course.
Journalism has even more issues if it’s trying to attract a more diverse pool of talent. Salaries in journalism are low, especially when compared to graduate averages. People who took my undergrad degree (PPE at Ox) at the same time as me are now enjoying £30,000 salaries within 6 months of graduation. I’ve gone an extra £10,000 into debt and can expect about £18,000 starting salary if I’m lucky. Those from lower income backgrounds tend to be more influenced by earnings than those with secure financial backgrounds (the paper is locked behind ATHENS, so I can’t link), and journalism - certainly its lower rungs - has little to offer financially.
The water is muddied yet more given journalism’s uncertain future: print circulations are falling and online revenues are far too small to make up the shortfall. It’s still not remotely clear how journalism will consolidate once the “online future” is the “online present”, but the consensus is that there’ll be far fewer jobs.
This need not be totally bleak - one journalist bluntly summarised the future as offering “fewer crappy jobs for fewer crappy journalists - but the good ones will always find work”. Harsh but fair, but the profession could branch out, too. Data projects (like everyblock in America or 192.com in the UK) start to hint at possibilities for journalism in the future. It’s a good time to be a specialist - knowing your way around data (or “computer-assisted”) reporting, online, or knowing any niche well, could help future prospects - and pay. This could bode well for a wider intake of journalists from other professions.
But in the meantime, is it really any wonder that the only people wanting to enter a profession that is undergoing its greatest upheaval in decades, costs a fortune to get into, doesn’t pay well once you do have a good parental safety net? Since this is the case, firms can get away with long unpaid work experience shifts - it doesn’t help matters, but is much more a result of more major issues than a cause of them.
The real shock is that there’s still so many of us battling to get into journalism, whether signing up to media studies courses, brushing up on shorthand, or sending out CVs to Marie Claire.
On a related note, I’m still looking for work experience at Easter. Should anyone be looking for interns (hey, I can dream), feel free to get in touch. I’ll be good, I promise…
Gosh, the folks over at the Telegraph are daring: using “information technology experts” they’ve found over “20 key pieces of information” about Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, for only 35p.
The article mentions warnings about “too much information” being posted to social networking sites, and criminals allegedly selling bank details online.
So, what have our intrepid Telegraph experts been getting involved in? Are they irrevocably steeped in criminality? Are they heck.
My hunch is that the main source for their info is that hotbed of vice, 192.com. In addition to the usual directory enquiry services, they offer searches of the electoral rolls, register of birth marriages and deaths, and some basic director info (think Companies House-lite)
What’s the evidence? I have none but the price paid. 35p (plus VAT) is the price for a “credit” on the site. With what you can get for free elsewhere, some regular directory enquiry searches, and sparing use of the paid for facilities, you could get “20 key pieces” of information on ANYONE.
That may well worry you – as, I’m sure, would the knowledge that anyone can order a copy of your birth or marriage certificate, wholly legally. They can also look up details of your mortgage and house price, company directorships, and with some work, shareholdings. Makes you wonder why you shred your data so carefully, really, doesn’t it?
So yes, less scaremongering over all this ID theft malarkey. It’s not so much that people wouldn’t go through your bins to steal, if necessary. It’s more that they just really don’t need to.
