Journalism Career Paths and Experiential Learning

Abstract

Print journalists gather, interpret, and report the news to a nation that is 40 percent minority and more than 50 percent female. Despite the ethnic and gender diversity of the population at large, however, print journalists as a group are 90 percent white and male. These statistics lead us to consider the factors that direct people into journalism and determine their success. A secondary analysis of an American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) research study (1989) helps to answer these questions. Using logit regression analysis of ASNE data, this researcher found that one's first job in print journalism has significant impact on future employment. The size of one's first employing company is a significant contributor to the size of later employing companies. Length of experience is also important. The longer an individual works within print journalism, the more likely it is he or she will move to an executive position at a large paper. Moreover, the longer one remains with an organization the better one's chances are for upward movement within that organization. Would-be journalists often have opportunities to engage in activities related to their chosen occupation before they leave school and enter the professional work world. Many schools offer experiential learning opportunities, such as internships and working on school papers or yearbooks. These opportunities have a positive relationship to early employment in the field of journalism. Method The ASNE survey was administered to a sample of 83 randomly selected newspapers for a possible 1,595 newsroom employees in the United States. Seventy-two newspapers participated in the ASNE study, for a total of 1,345 respondents. The ASNE study also addressed some of the variables concerning pre-career activities and career choice of print journalism. In this population, the vast majority of respondents (more than 90%) described themselves as male and white. Analysis of the careers and pre-careers of print journalists reveals a number of major themes. Logit regression analysis was appropriate for these data because categories which defined the group gender and ethnicity created a very small number of cases for females and non-whites.(1) The procedure used for a secondary analysis included the nonsubstantive effects in the regression model, but refrained from interpreting them. Thus, with three independent variables (A, B, and C), and one dependent variable (D), one would automatically include any interactions between A, B, and C in the regression equation.(2) Logit regression analysis of this survey data produced several significant themes, three of which are presented in this paper. 1. The typical print journalist in America is a young, college-educated white male. Analysis confirmed the findings of previous studies that have revealed a great deal about the demographic make-up of the journalism workforce.(3) Many of these studies focused on all journalists; few exclusively examined print journalists. The profile of the typical print journalist has remained fairly constant over the past few decades. Print journalists tend to be slightly younger than the labor force in law or medicine. According to the ASNE survey (1989), slightly more than half (53%) are age 35 or younger. Sixty percent of all newspaper reporters are under the age of 36, as are 30 percent of news executives.(4) In terms of their education, journalists surpassed national education levels. Weaver and Wilhoit found that in 1982, 86 percent of contemporary journalists had attended college for one or more years.(5) College graduates constituted 58.2 percent of print journalists, 18.6 percent of whom had also undertaken some graduate study, and 8.1 percent of whom had graduate degrees. According to the ASNE report, 85 percent of the current newsroom work force was college-educated and 15 percent had graduate degrees. Educational specialization, however, seemed to have only a modest impact on career choice. …