{"id":21274,"date":"2014-10-08T21:20:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T21:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?p=19091"},"modified":"2014-10-08T21:20:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T21:20:34","slug":"tips-on-careers-in-journalism-from-npr-correspondent-david-folkenflik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/2014\/10\/tips-on-careers-in-journalism-from-npr-correspondent-david-folkenflik\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips on careers in journalism from NPR correspondent David&nbsp;Folkenflik"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='\/\/eighty-thousand-hours-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/2014\/10\/David-Folkenflik-ITGR-600x400.jpg'><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"David Folkenflik\" class=\"image large\" src=\"\/\/eighty-thousand-hours-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/2014\/10\/David-Folkenflik-ITGR-600x400.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>David has been NPR\u2019s media correspondent since 2004, and before that spent over a decade at the Baltimore Sun. He has won <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/4459112\/david-folkenflik\">numerous awards<\/a> for journalism, and is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/murdochsworld.com\/\">Murdoch\u2019s World<\/a>: The Last of the Old Media Empires.<\/p>\n<p>I had the chance to meet him at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nexusyouthsummit.org\/\">4th annual Nexus Global Youth Summit<\/a>, where we chatted about careers in journalism for people who want to make a difference. Here\u2019s the notes I made on the key takeaways, which I ran past David before publishing for edits (and are entirely his own views).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you want to get a job in journalism, apply to any news organization that interests you, including all the major media organisations. Set some priorities &#8211; pay, location, size of organization, type of work, etc and select among  them based on your top several priorities once you&#8217;ve got offers. \u201cI applied to over 70 organisations. I got two offers, only one of which paid more than $10,000, so I went with that!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Previously the route into the industry was to get a job at a local news station or paper. But the local news industry has shrunk significantly in recent years, so it\u2019s a lot harder to advance from these positions today.<\/li>\n<li>Build a personal library of content on Tumblr or some platform where it\u2019s relatively easy to build a site. \u201cThere needs to be something out there you can link to.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re still in college, what should you do next? Start writing and reporting on the side to test yourself out, and to start building your portfolio.<\/li>\n<li>How competitive is journalism? \u201cYou need to really want it; that\u2019s the major filter.\u201d It\u2019s not a career you should  drift into, but if you\u2019re motivated, you\u2019ve got a decent chance.<\/li>\n<li>Although the industry is changing rapidly, it&#8217;s not high risk if you&#8217;re young and don&#8217;t have a mortgage or other family obligations. And if you do, it can still be rewarding. <\/li>\n<li>Journalism is a good path if you want to effect social change, but that change may be defined quite differently than it would be at a philanthropy or advocacy organization. Providing good information and analysis is a public good in itself. You\u2019ve also got a public platform to promote neglected concerns. And there\u2019s been a renaissance of new news outlets that openly embrace advocacy and point of view journalism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href='\/\/eighty-thousand-hours-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/2014\/10\/David-Folkenflik-ITGR-600x400.jpg'><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"David Folkenflik\" class=\"image large\" src=\"\/\/eighty-thousand-hours-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/2014\/10\/David-Folkenflik-ITGR-600x400.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>David has been NPR\u2019s media correspondent since 2004, and before that spent over a decade at the Baltimore Sun. He has won <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/4459112\/david-folkenflik\">numerous awards<\/a> for journalism, and is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/murdochsworld.com\/\">Murdoch\u2019s World<\/a>: The Last of the Old Media Empires.<\/p>\n<p>I had the chance to meet him at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nexusyouthsummit.org\/\">4th annual Nexus Global Youth Summit<\/a>, where we chatted about careers in journalism for people who want to make a difference. Here\u2019s the notes I made on the key takeaways, which I ran past David before publishing for edits (and are entirely his own views).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you want to get a job in journalism, apply to any news organization that interests you, including all the major media organisations. Set some priorities &#8211; pay, location, size of organization, type of work, etc and select among  them based on your top several priorities once you&#8217;ve got offers. \u201cI applied to over 70 organisations. I got two offers, only one of which paid more than $10,000, so I went with that!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Previously the route into the industry was to get a job at a local news station or paper. But the local news industry has shrunk significantly in recent years, so it\u2019s a lot harder to advance from these positions today.<\/li>\n<li>Build a personal library of content on Tumblr or some platform where it\u2019s relatively easy to build a site. \u201cThere needs to be something out there you can link to.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re still in college, what should you do next? Start writing and reporting on the side to test yourself out, and to start building your portfolio.<\/li>\n<li>How competitive is journalism? \u201cYou need to really want it; that\u2019s the major filter.\u201d It\u2019s not a career you should  drift into, but if you\u2019re motivated, you\u2019ve got a decent chance.<\/li>\n<li>Although the industry is changing rapidly, it&#8217;s not high risk if you&#8217;re young and don&#8217;t have a mortgage or other family obligations. And if you do, it can still be rewarding. <\/li>\n<li>Journalism is a good path if you want to effect social change, but that change may be defined quite differently than it would be at a philanthropy or advocacy organization. Providing good information and analysis is a public good in itself. You\u2019ve also got a public platform to promote neglected concerns. And there\u2019s been a renaissance of new news outlets that openly embrace advocacy and point of view journalism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[450,509],"class_list":["post-21274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-journalist"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tips on careers in journalism from NPR correspondent David Folkenflik - 80,000 Hours<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/2014\/10\/tips-on-careers-in-journalism-from-npr-correspondent-david-folkenflik\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tips on careers in journalism from NPR correspondent David Folkenflik\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David has been NPR\u2019s media correspondent since 2004, and before that spent over a decade at the Baltimore Sun. 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