Two years
More depressing news. Stumbled across this today on the journalism blog Getting Ink:
Indeed, one magazine editor said someone looking to break into journalism should expect to work for free for two years. Yes, you read that right – TWO YEARS. Jesus.
I checked to find the editor in question. Journalism.co.uk attributed the statement to Maureen Rice of Psychologies (at Hachette Fillipacchi), although she has clarified the statement on the same site:
I would like to clarify: I didn't say that journalists "should expect" to work for free for two years, and certainly didn't imply that I consider that standard or desirable. I said I'd known people work for up to two years in a variety or work experience placements and internships before landing a properly paying job.
Which isn't quite as bad, but still – two years? Really?
The whole idea of working for free (work experience, internship – pick your own euphemism) to get a job is not, of course, new, and I did the same thing. Some places were interesting and useful – a brief spell at the BBC was my first opportunity to learn anything at all about television news – but it's not easy working without pay. And that's despite the fact that I was lucky enough to be able to live at home at the time, and to find a full time day job from which I could take "holidays" working on, for example, the local paper – not everyone has it that easy.
And then, of course, I was lucky enough to get a paid job on a magazine. Would I have managed to stick unpaid work for two years? I'm really not sure that I could have. And, given that I'm not entirely sure what other jobs I could actually do, that's a rather depressing thought.
Tags: journalism, Maureen Rice, Psychologies, two years
March 24th, 2009 at 11:03
Think she might be right, actually. I worked for free, at various internships, work experience placements and for college credit, on and off for almost my entire time at college university. Certainly moving into journalism from another career would be tricky at best, unless you had the mother of all contacts.