So you want to be a journalist?

“Oh, no no no, you don’t want to do that.  Journalists are the scum of the earth” declared my school principal Paul Bland (it was an apt name) when I timidly revealed at age 16 I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up.

I did the safe thing and studied business. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, but there were few moments when I felt passionate about what I was learning.

“You won’t learn anything you can’t learn on the job” declared my ex husband, a journalist himself, as I considered embarking on a diploma in journalism while he helped me set up my publishing company and equipped me with the basic skills required of a news reporter.

I held off again, absorbed in building the start-up that would ultimately turn me into a journalist –the hard way.

“But you’re already a journalist” declared my journo friends when I told them post divorce and thirteen years on from finishing my first degree I was finally heading back to uni to get a Master of Journalism.

The arduous task of enrolling in one of the biggest bureaucracies in the country only added to my doubts, but while the journey to journalism study may have been long , my experience so far has me feeling I’ve ended up studying at the right time with the right people.

I chose Monash because of the skills and reputation of its teaching faculty. It’s a school that only last year revamped its journalism unit to turn what was essentially a print journalism degree into one that reflects the multimedia skills required of all journalists today.

I’ve studied the business of publishing for 7 years and sponged up every piece of news and analysis about the future of media. I love writing and no doubt always will, but I recently decided radio is the medium I’d like to pursue more seriously.

I couldn’t be happier that my first year sound and image lecturer is the very talented Mia Lindgren – a broadcast journalist whose experience is matched by her passion.

Already we’ve discussed the threats and opportunities of embracing a profession that has a largely unknown future, and debated the strange conundrum that has journalists ranked alongside used car salesman in the trust stakes, yet thousands of young people flocking to study it every year.

The end result of combining the popularity of journalism with the wholesale cutting of jobs in the industry is very few undergraduate journalism students will go on to make a career in mainstream media.

It’s something I put to the faculty as we sat around the meet and greet table discussing the future of media. Rather than being affronted by the question, teachers Philip Chub, Bill Birnbauer and Chris Nash along with Lindgren made a humble yet solid case for the role of study, professional skills, and something most journalists have little time for, reflection.

What resonated most were the words echoed around the table by a group of individuals that have clearly taken an active interest in the future of their students:

At the end of the day “If you really want to be a journalist, you will be”.

Tags: future of media, journalism, media studies, Monash University