Another career advice question, what's a budding writer slash editor to do these days?

July 13, 2012 3:45 PM

I majored in journalism and Spanish. My only work experience has been internships at newspapers and lots of Spanish tutoring. I do not want to be a teacher. Journalism jobs are pretty much unavailable for the conceivable future, at least for young people 3 years out of college like me. What else can I do? Where can I put my skills to use? My plan was to work in journalism or publishing. What else is there now that these industries are sinking, fast?
posted by sunrisecoffee to work & money (12 answers total)

I know someone who followed basically this same path and ultimately got a job doing online content management.

What do you want to do? At the end of the day, a BA is a BA. Three years out of college, nobody is going to care much about your college major.

Do you have significant Spanish language skills? Could you do translation?
posted by Sara C. at 3:54 PM on July 13, 2012

You could join the dark side. Public Relations/Marketing is filled with former journalism majors and workers, myself included.

If writing is more your thing, you could go into technical writing.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:58 PM on July 13, 2012

How good is your Spanish? There's a decent amount of work available for talented translators and interpreters.
posted by decathecting at 4:09 PM on July 13, 2012

Nthing translation.
posted by heyjude at 4:13 PM on July 13, 2012

Teach ESL in Chile or wherever and occasionally write up local issues or interesting social phenomena for an English-language venue to beef up your journalism resume.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 4:24 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Where are you located? If you're in the US, speaking actual Spanish (as in, you can reliably and extemporaneously communicate) is a major benefit in pretty much any field that involves interacting with other people -- aka, 95% of fields. If you can show off your skill in Spanish, I think you'd have a major leg up in applying for most just-have-a-bachelors-in-something type jobs.
posted by threeants at 4:34 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Location matters. Your user page doesn't show one. In my zip code any public facing occupation from building houses to selling shoes to auto mechanic has a very strong preference for bilingual Spanish English employees. All the people who work in my apartment building from the manager to the guys who water the grass are bilingual.
posted by bukvich at 5:02 PM on July 13, 2012

Translation is a great job, but it can be grinding and it's not something that will take you anywhere. If you build some contacts, you can use it as a freelance funder. What, if anything, are you writing and for who? Start there, and review what it is that is stopping you from writing more, earning more or getting a better deal on trips and taxes.

The truth is that journalism jobs are available to people who are able to negotiate how they will be accessed by an employer. If you were able to put through services, such as starting a spanish-language news blog for your area, something like Patch but aimed at the Spanish speaking market and those learning Spanish, you could start landing advertising and support from other local media, such as radio stations.

It won't pay anything at the beginning. So, go to work. Take a look at Berkeleyside.com for some regulars that draw traffic and places that matter to residents. I am sure a city council report that was written for a spanish-reading audience could be tremendously important to business. Figure out your costs. If you do it one-person you could pay yourself $24,000-$32,000 per year, which is not bad. You will need to learn Photoshop so that you can make business ads for the website. You can grow out other work from it, such as media skills workshops for businesses and charities as an earner.

Your biggest cost will be time to write stories, time to hand out flyers, and time to moderate the websites comments. I think it could pay off if you're entrepreneurially ready. Don't do anything but look for some stories you could start writing. If you can get the blog up in August, you could get in a lot of local coverage and have your advertising rate card in the hands of very important people. Remember to post it on Projects!
posted by parmanparman at 5:39 PM on July 13, 2012

Un-nthing translation. Translation is a specialized skill that requires careful study. It involves much more than just an ability to communicate in a foreign language. If you haven't tried your hand at business (not literary) translation, you probably don't fully understand what's involved.

Second, translation in almost any language is full of professionals. And I don't mean professional translators, I mean university faculty, engineers, and medical professionals who have turned to translation as a side income. Most translation projects are technical and highly specialized, and require substantial area knowledge. There's really no "just translation."

Basically, you don't just up and start working as a translator. It takes years to build up to an actual income, and a lot of luck besides. It's not at all a reliable option.
posted by Nomyte at 7:02 PM on July 13, 2012 [4 favorites]

If media is your thing, I agree that going into online content management could be an idea, though I don't know how well it pays. In my experience, the money is in business writing, whether it's marketing copy (can be creative but the clients drive you nuts), PR (shoot me now), or tech writing (not exactly exciting but can be steady and lucrative).

If you have no interest in business, you might look into doing mass communications or PR work for NGOs or for the developing world. Projects can include things like designing PR campaigns encouraging condom use or doing research to figure out what kind of message would encourage people to send their daughters to school. Your Spanish would be helpful.
posted by ceiba at 9:29 AM on July 14, 2012

For what it's worth, I think that if you can write well, you have a lot of options. I know you said that you don't want to teach which I understand but have you considered ESL? I'm not interested in teaching personally but if I was going to teach, ESL sounds cool - you deal with people from different cultures and it's rewarding because you're teaching them how to communicate with people here so you can see that you're making a difference in their lives.

The "traditional" routes for someone with journalism experience who doesn't actually do journalism include communications, PR, media relations, marketing, copy writing. But if you only have a few years of experience, why not pursue things that really interest you? My advice is to just start looking at job ads. Apply for gigs that you think look interesting, even if you're not necessarily qualified. If you're really not qualified but it sounds super compelling, look at the qualifications and see what you need to do to become qualified in a few years.

Keep your chin up. Yeah, journalism and publishing are not doing so hot but you'll figure it out. We all do. Sort of.
posted by kat518 at 12:29 PM on July 14, 2012

There is PR and also communications work at not-for-profits. Spanish is a huge plus in either of those arenas. From what my not-for-profit friends tell me, it is really hard for them to find bilingual communications and media staffers. Try something entry level there. Your language skills will be a huge plus there or in government.
posted by manicure12 at 12:02 PM on July 15, 2012