The Price of Passions

I’ve cycled through career goals many times since I started college. I have the financially prosperous combination of passions for writing, literature, and working with people that often leads college students to pursue a degree in education. Like many of the people in my program, I was a writer who was driven by a desire to learn as much as possible about books and writing.The hope to maybe give future students an ounce of the passion we had came with that. Then, as happens with the education system in our country, all but maybe two of us became disillusioned, and fast. My closest friend in the program is currently leaving her position to pursue a masters in philosophy (she isn’t sure why) and my roommate, the only person I’ve ever met who truly embodies the personality of Miss Honey, is leaving her fourth graders to become a recruiter.

A recruiter. It’s come that far.

I have no room to judge, I fled my degree appointed duties as a teacher and went straight into grad school, with the lofty goals of becoming a professor and perhaps someday in the future, I’d make money from writing. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a writer, I just simply assumed those careers hardly existed, or that they didn’t make money. I’m not entirely sure I’m 100% wrong, but the more and more I apply for jobs and attempt to break into “the scene,” the more I look at those teaching jobs posted and wonder if I’ve been prolonging the inevitable.

The Devil Wears Knockoff Prada

David Roberts from Vox has a similarly anxious attitude towards the future of journalism, he offers excellent advice in his post to new journalists, but some of it just isn’t quite applicable to those truly fresh writers. “You should be interested in your subject. If you are, you will seek out people who know more than you and learn from them. You will share what you know with people who want to know more. You will trade stories with people engaged on the same subject. As a side effect, you will network. Let your curiosity be your guide.” says Roberts, yet my passion for fashion and beauty writing is unfortunately not going to get me far in the two cut throat industries without knowing the right people.

I’m no Andy Sachs, and I doubt I’m going to bump into my Miranda Priestly at a job interview. No, Roberts’ true best advice comes in his acknowledgement of what many in the industry call “bridge careers.” Roberts says, “So journalism is inevitably shifting. These days, it is less about producing new information than it is about gathering information already on the record, evaluating it, and explaining and contextualizing it for an audience, perhaps with some analysis and argumentation for good measure.” This isn’t quite getting into the conversation of bridge careers,and Frederica Cherubini for Nieman Labs does an excellent job at explaining this confusing career path.

“These are hybrid roles that are breaking down barriers by working at the intersection of various disciplines. They speak the language of journalism, engineering, and product management. They focus on how to improve collaboration and are part of multidisciplinary teams.”

Onward and Forward

The reality is that as society evolves, so does our journalism. Even my education degree can now lend itself to people management and learning and development coordination. In an age where graduates are fighting tooth and nail for any job, particularly as we emerge into a recession that is starting to give the warning signs of depression, it’s incredibly beneficial to be flexible and mutate with your job. Sure, I may not be the luxury fashion writer of my dreams immediately, but the goal now is to adapt myself to the gaps within the publications of my dreams. This is the easiest time to be a journalist, and Roberts himself argues that writing anything and posting it anywhere has given you the license to do so. Even as I work on Medium and generate content for my thesis, I’m looking at how to adapt my writing and my goals to the needs of new journalism.

The job hunt won’t ever not be terrifying, and the comfortable recession proof passion of teaching is always enticing, but it’s important not to entirely rule out journalism as a whole. Cherubini agrees, “If change is the new norm and these roles will be key to that change, it’s important that we start to raise awareness around their challenges and empower them to keep pushing innovation forward now.”