(For)get a job   

When this year's journalism school graduates hit the streets, they'll find that jobs are hard to come by.

When Stacey Torman graduated from Indiana University last May with degrees in journalism and history, she figured a B- average, experience on the school paper and yearbook, a couple of magazine internships, clips and references would get her an entry-level editorial job.

She figured wrong. "I sent out 274 résumés and got one phone call and about 90 rejection letters. I think the rest threw it out without looking at it." The lone phone call didn't lead to an interview. "The problem is a market swamped with journalists who have been out of work for five or six months and they're hungry and they'll take jobs at our entry-level wages," she says.

After a year of doing administrative work, Torman was on the verge of giving up hope of a newspaper career when she landed a job as an editorial assistant at the Northern California Jewish Bulletin in San Francisco. "It's mostly slime work, but at least it's in journalism," she says.

Jennifer Stephens, a 1990 graduate of the University of Colorado, thought her broadcast journalism career was off to a great start when she grabbed an internship at the British Broadcasting Corporation immediately after graduation. Then she arrived in London to find the position had been cut; she was laid off without having worked a day. After a frustrating stint freelancing in New York, she has been job-hunting in Denver since last July. Her best offer so far: 25 hours a week at a radio station for $6 an hour, with a two-year contract and little hope for advancement. Instead, she opted for better wages and benefits working in customer relations at McDonnell Douglas Corp.

Brian Kenety graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in August 1990 and began looking for a position in print or broadcast. Three layoffs later, he's still hoping he can break into the business. His current job, as a research production assistant at troubled Monitor Television, will be eliminated June 15.

Several thousand fresh J-school graduates will face the same closed doors as Torman, Stephens and Kenety when they hit the streets this June. As a result of the tight job market, more and more may have to find work in non-news fields. The exodus could have a lasting effect on the news business.

According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the number of newsroom professionals hired for their first full-time jobs fell 30 percent from 1991 to 1,967 in 1992. The number of people working in newsrooms at dailies has declined by two percent for the second straight year, ASNE's 1992 newsroom employment survey found. There is little chance jobs lost in recent newspaper closures and mergers will return when the recession ends, and reason to fear that many, if not most, of those positions lost to layoffs will never be resurrected.

"I think there is a structural change happening in the industry, because newspapers have learned to do more with less," says John Blodger, vice president of human resources at the American Newspaper Publishers Association. "And they're certainly not going to be beefing back up to the same [staffing] levels, even if things turn around. They're going to be more cautious about their hiring."

Nor is the recent recession the sole cause for alarm. The most comprehensive annual survey of recent journalism school graduates showed disturbing trends even before the economy took a nosedive.

The School of Journalism at Ohio State University, with funding from the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, the National Association of Broadcasters and other industry groups, sends questionnaires each year to thousands of young journalists, asking them to assess their fledgling careers. The latest survey for which results are available, by Lee B. Becker of Ohio State, quizzed 2,596 class-of-1990 graduates from 80 randomly selected journalism and mass communications programs. By nearly every measure, the picture is bleak:

• The unemployment figure for recent recipients of bachelor's degrees in journalism nearly doubled, jumping from 8.9 percent to 16.8 percent between 1989 and 1990. The unemployment rates were slightly higher for news-editorial and broadcasting majors than for public relations and advertising majors. Underemployment – part-time or temporary work – combined with unemployment rose from 19.1 percent to 28.3 percent.

• Fewer students in 1990 reported getting job offers from media employers than did graduates in 1989. Some 22.4 percent of bachelor's degree recipients in 1990 sought work with a daily, but only 8.9 percent received an offer. Of the 25.7 percent who looked for jobs at a TV station, only 7.8 percent reported getting an offer.

• Many of those who found work are not using the skills they spent four years honing. In 1990, 68 percent of the recent graduates who landed jobs said their jobs involved activities related to their college communications studies. This figure was significantly lower than those of the previous two years.

• For the first time in recent years, journalists' salaries in 1990 failed to keep pace with inflation. But young graduates can't afford to be picky. More say they took the job they did because it was the only one available. Job satisfaction also is falling, the survey showed.

Although the new survey won't be finished until next month, Tom Engleman of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund says its findings are similar to those from the class of 1990.

"I think it's about as hard right now as any time in the 25 years I've been teaching full time," says Phil Robbins, director of journalism at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and once an editor at the defunct Washington Star.

Paul Salsini, staff development director at the Milwaukee Journal and a journalism instructor at Marquette University, says the job market is the worst he's seen in 33 years. "It's not going to be the same when the economy recovers, because the readership is down."

Some researchers are more optimistic. Vernon Stone, journalism professor at the University of Missouri and research director for the Radio-Television News Directors Association, says surveys he recently completed show that the workforce in television journalism held steady over the past two years. Stone says he was surprised to find that well-publicized layoffs were largely offset by new jobs added at other stations, particularly for morning news programs. "There are more jobs out there than people think," he says. "There are always openings for good entry-level people. They don't cost as much."

Entry-level job-seekers may be better off than veterans, says Wisconsin grad Kenety, because beginners fulfill basic but essential tasks like videotape labeling. "There are some things you can't do without." And he feels things may not be as tough nationwide as they are in the major media centers. "Everyone wants to work in New York or Washington, but if you go to a smaller station you can get more hands-on experience."

Nevertheless, students contemplating a journalism career are taking note of the tighter job market. "I find many of my best students go to law school rather than into journalism, and that's really bad," Salsini says. "People have been saying for years that we're losing the best and the brightest because of pay and the [limited] opportunities, and I fear this recession may have that kind of effect on even more people."

Robbins of George Washington University couldn't agree more. "I think it's a shame. It's going to turn a lot of bright people off of daily journalism, either print or electronic... We are losing a lot of people."

The Ohio State study found that the median salary of 1990 bachelor's degree recipients who found full-time employment with a daily newspaper was $348 per week; for those at TV stations it was $289 and at radio stations $254. But for those graduates who found full-time work in public relations agencies, the median salary was $378 per week, the study showed.

"Graduates can do $5,000 to $10,000 [a year] better at entry-level trade association jobs or in public relations or, God help us, even government jobs," Robbins says. "A lot of bright people are coming into the news-editorial sequence without any intention of ever working in daily journalism."

Economic pressures have also crippled internship programs. Because of budget problems, papers are cutting back on them. The Los Angeles Times reduced the number of summer interns it hires from about 40 in 1990 to 10 last year and 18 this year. Nationwide, a June 1991 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund survey showed dailies offering 21.3 percent fewer internships than they had five years earlier.

In addition, graduates who can't find a permanent position are grabbing what internships remain. Salsini points out, for example, that the number of applications for the Milwaukee Journal's 11 summer internships increased to 570 from 450 a year earlier. Many more college seniors applied for the internships than before, he says. "In a normal job market they would be applying for real jobs." Graduating seniors ended up with nine of Milwaukee's slots. Salsini doesn't fault the Journal for hiring the best available people, "but I feel bad we're not giving that experience to younger people." Robbins notes that unpaid internships are still available; graduates don't overrun them because few can afford to work for free.

Colorado graduate Stephens says her big mistake as a student was working as news director of the campus radio station instead of interning at a larger station; she wanted "to be making the news decisions instead of getting coffee for some anchor." But without an internship at a larger station to get her foot in the door and impress employers, landing work is impossible, she says. "I think I've had some decent experience, but..if you come out and have a degree and not much else, you're in trouble... I've tried and tried, and I haven't found another way in."

Minority students may suffer less from these setbacks, says Stan Soffin, director of Michigan State University's School of Journalism, because improving the industry's record on minority hiring continues to be a top priority despite the recession.

Salsini agrees. "I think papers are still looking for minorities – we are – and their numbers have not grown, so the demand for them is greater." Cindy Chow-Snavely, editorial internship director at the Los Angeles Times, notes that while internships were reduced significantly over recent years, the Times Mirror Minority Editorial Training Program, known as METPRO, was unaffected.

The journalism job market isn't much different from any other right now, says Mary Kay Blake, director of recruiting and placement for the newspaper division of Gannett. "Jobs are hard to come by, so people will need to be more flexible," willing to work for a smaller paper or to relocate, she says.

Beth Gaeddert, placement coordinator at the University of Colorado School of Journalism and Mass Communication, says almost every student from the class of 1991 looking for a newspaper job found one, mostly at small papers in Colorado. "They have to sell their energy and their enthusiasm and their willingness to work for $13,000 a year."

There of course continue to be plenty of students with a burning desire to be reporters, editors and photographers who will gladly work for $13,000 a year for a chance to prove themselves. And the current recession has put thousands of qualified journalists out of work, résumés clutched tightly in each hand. "I think publishers have taken advantage of that to keep salaries down," Robbins said.

While most professors agree there is little danger in the short run, they see the potential for long-term disaster if journalism loses its appeal and becomes a backwater for students who lack the ability to succeed elsewhere.

"The media needs to make sure it remains aggressive in recruiting talented high school and college students," says Michigan State's Soffin. "They shouldn't stop visiting journalism schools and simply disappear because they have no openings in the next year." Inevitably, though, the number of on-campus appearances has been dropping during the recession, he says.

So how does media management ensure a steady supply of high-quality employees? Improving salaries, or at least preventing their further erosion, would be a start, says Soffin.

Ensuring a supply of good journalists will take more than higher pay, says Salsini. "The industry has to address the question of what benefits we can give to young journalists to make this [field] more attractive. It has to be pay, but we also have to stress that you can accomplish a lot, and it's greatly satisfying, and it's extremely fun."

Kenety is finding it hard to stay optimistic. "I would love to stay in [journalism], and I'm still exploring it, but realistically there are so many people on the streets now. I don't know if I can make a living at it." l