Broadcast Journalism

Paper Summary:

This paper presents the author's struggle to decide if she wants to pursue a career as a broadcast journalist. The author outlines the drawbacks, including low wages and the extreme competition. She also discusses the educational requirements for the field, and the need to intern. Finally, she examines the particular struggle to find meaningful opportunities for women in TV news. The paper concludes with the author's decision to continue pursuing the field, despite the challenges.

From the Paper:

"Besides the extreme competition there are many other disadvantages in this career path. One of them is the pervasive low wages. According to Stone, "there's a widening gap between the salaries of anchors and news directors and those of the majority of staff. In small and middle markets, the basic news handlers-- reporters, photographers and producers--have lost ground to the cost of living in recent years." The obvious reason that attributes to the low wages is the aforementioned overabundance of applicants. They don't need to pay the entry-level people very well because many people are willing to take any job to get their foot in the door. A survey done in 1994 shows that the median salary for a reporter is around $21,000 and the top anchor $55,000; the sports and weather people fall somewhere in between. According to US News magazine's own survey conducted in 1997, the average salary for entry level journalism jobs in general, is around $22,000."

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