Life after journalism... but don't want to do PR?

May 6, 2017 1:21 AM

Journalists and ex-journalists of MeFi: What did you do for a career change? I'm a reporter in my mid-thirties with an established career in journalism. I'm thinking more and more about a career change, but public relations doesn't appeal to me. Specifics after the jump.

I've worked as a writer for the past decade in a dual digital & print role, and am considering a career change. My current employer (where I've been for 3+ years) has a high turnover rate and other issues, and I'm finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with my job.

Most of my friends in the journalism industry are at publications that are in a constant state of downsizing, layoffs, and asking more of their employees while paying them less, and it's difficult. I love writing, but I also love not having to work 60 hour workweeks while seeing budgets slashed like I see right now.

Many ex-journalists I know have gone the PR route... But I'm also pretty sure I don't want to go into public relations either. The idea of spending my days cold emailing/cold calling journalists holds zero appeal to me, and I don't want to be in the position of representing clients who are misleading or lying to the public. Other career paths would be ideal.

Extra factors: I live in a big city that isn't New York, Washington DC, or San Francisco. I'm good at research, juggling projects with lots of moving parts, and talking to people on different teams with different priorities. My resume is almost exclusively media industry, with not much else on it.

Any ideas? Or if you were also a journalist, what did you do after journalism?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (17 answers total)

FWIW, your ideas of what PR constitutes are pretty narrow (and a little strange to me tbh).

I'm an ex-newspaper reporter, got a comms job for a non-profit sporting organisation that really interests me. I don't know when I last cold-called a journalist, don't have to misrepresent anyone or lie to anyone. A lot of my work is member-facing, and our members are people with the same interests as me. I update our websites, do social media, and edit a quarterly magazine, where I'm the only person with any input on what goes in, so no having to please editors - I put in what I want, however I want.

I'm never going to be rich, but it's pretty much all the good bits of journalism and none of the (many) bad bits.
posted by penguin pie at 2:49 AM on May 6, 2017 [9 favorites]

Learned app making. Took a while but glad I got out of the PR/ad track.
posted by johngoren at 4:21 AM on May 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

I manage a research center for a large consulting firm, and I'm currently hiring a writer to join my team to help with our content creation. We have a strong preference for former journalists, especially if they have experience with longer pieces.

Cons for the candidate are that there's some constraint in what they can write about, some need to craft a core message that we want to convey as an organization, etc.

Pros are that it's not a daily churn job, as some journalism is becoming; there's no concern about the financial stability of your employer; and we pay amazingly well compared to most journalism jobs.

Most large organizations in consulting, financial services, etc., have roles like this.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:36 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

The job penguin pie describes is what I came here to mention. I work in higher ed now, but worked in a non-profit for a long time. There are lots of jobs in those two sectors that might interest you, but don't involve any cold calling and the other things you mentioned.

For instance, our Advancement office just hired a writer to do all of the writing for the Alumni and Development groups (so, emails, newsletters, stories for the web, letters from the President etc).

We employ a few writers in the Marketing Dept, as well - who do a lot of copyediting and writing for print pieces, the website, email, etc.

In my non-profit we often had someone in either Development or Communications who wrote 90% of what came out of the organization which ranged from press releases to emails to our network to letters to members of Congress and newspaper op-eds. They also worked on white paper-like pieces. There was also a lot of work done with the network of programs we supported which included media training on how to do outreach, etc.
posted by jdl at 5:50 AM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I left (in 2002), we were a whole bunch who left at the same time, and it has been quite interesting to see how people have come along. One is a very succesfull writer of non-fiction, often with a historical perspective. If you are good at research and managing your own time, that is certainly a career. I tried that for a while, but found it lonely, and I finally finished the PhD I was stalling and moved on to research and education.
Another is doing event management for a local museum. Lovely job. Some created their own blog together, failed at the first attempt but now seem to be succesfull with long-form writing supplemented with speech-giving on the subjects they research. And as mentioned above, some have communications jobs with non-profits. In short, there are many possibilities.
One person I know went from news journalism to communications within a big corporation. So no talking with other media or spin, but a lot of interesting travel and learning about management and strategy. That was also a very well paid job.
posted by mumimor at 6:01 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's a really good Facebook group for journalists contemplating career changes called: What's Your plan b? Poynter did a write up on it not too long ago.
posted by melodykramer at 7:34 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I know a former investigative journalist who works in the investigations/enforcement department of a self-regulatory agency. Job involves research, interviews and writing.
posted by Caz721 at 8:16 AM on May 6, 2017

I am an arts journalist and the PR people I talk to on staff at museums, theaters, symphonies and universities are lovely lovely lovely and seem to like their jobs. Basically +1 that you don't have to do marketing for Philip Morris.
posted by athirstforsalt at 8:18 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

For a more dramatic career change, you could consider teaching writing or English at the university or high school level, or internationally.
posted by athirstforsalt at 8:20 AM on May 6, 2017

A lot of folks jump from journalism to content marketing or other corporate gigs that are based around editorial/content generation.

If you're in the tech industry there are tons of opportunities to use your writing / content chops to produce material without having to do cold calling or any kind of client support. A lot of former journalists / tech reporters have also moved into community management/evangelism, which depends heavily on communication skills.

Of course, if you're working for a corporation you're going to run the risk of finding yourself supporting decisions/strategies you're not in love with. You can also go the non-profit route, though the pay and stability won't be quite as good as corporate work. (But probably not as bad as journalism right now.)
posted by jzb at 8:20 AM on May 6, 2017

One of the best technical/documentation writers I have ever worked with was a former newspaper journalist. We pay our documentation writers 6 figures plus equity, they work very reasonable hours, and the job is all about helping people use our product better (solving problems, thinking of ways to communicate stuff to different audiences). There might be a bit of a learning curve, but we have definitely hired excellent writers with no actual technical writing experience. The key skills are gathering relevant information, understanding an audience, and then translating that into effective written documents. Actual "technical" skills are secondary (this will definitely vary by company and team, though).
posted by primethyme at 9:55 AM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Came here to mention content marketing. A friend with a 15-year career in magazine journalism is now handling content marketing for a large website and is very pleased with the job. I would say don't dismiss the field just because the term "content marketing" might rub you the wrong way (if it does.)

For my part, I'm a former newspaper journalist who now writes books. I wouldn't tell you to run out and try to get a book contract because it's not always a way forward and it is hardly a guarantee of being able to make a living, but it can work sometimes. I would say it's more likely to work in combination with something else. It's something to keep in mind, at any rate.
posted by veggieboy at 12:27 PM on May 6, 2017

If you're in the D.C. area there are some pretty cool, and well-paying by journalist standards, writing and editing jobs for the Feds. While getting a genuine federal job may tough at the moment, there are lots of interesting ones out there through contractors.

If you're interested in science or health writing NIH and FDA definitely hire writers for some really cool projects related to communicating new research to the public. If national security or military is more your beat there's a ton of stuff related to that.

Scientific organizations will also hire former journalists with strong editing skills for positions in academic publishing. Big scientific associations like American Chemistry or Society for Neuroscience might be worth scoping out for writing and editing jobs.
posted by forkisbetter at 1:45 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are a lot of communications roles that former reporters can do that are not media relations. For instance, I work in digital strategy for a national non-profit. We have several content specialists/strategists on staff who used to be reporters and who now write digital communications for our campaigns and fundraising. Most companies or non-profits larger than a certain level have teams like this (in the for-profit sector it's more likely to be called some variation on "marketing").

But also, It sounds like your main concerns with a more traditional PR role are cold-calling reporters and lying to the public. I don't think either of those things are a given in PR:

If you are an experienced journalist with connections, cold-calling reporters would be a really tiny part of your job. The PR people I know spend most of their time reaching out to reporters via email and twitter, maybe following up by phone if necessary, and it's more about building a relationship than cold-calling 50 reporters. And anyway, media outreach is just one part of the job - there's another huge creative piece that involves developing the narrative and strategy, writing, etc.

If you're worried about lying to the public, just don't go work for a company or organization where you think that might be an issue. For instance, I am thinking about switching to the private sector, but I know I could never work for a fossil fuel company, or an agency working for a fossil fuel company. So that's just one of my dealbreakers. You could go work for a non-profit whose mission you support, or a university, or a company that's not doing things you find immoral.

I do think a lot of the former reporters I know struggle with this a bit at first - you're going from reporting in a presumably unbiased manner to communicating on behalf of an institution. Some reporters will never be comfortable with that shift - but definitely don't feel like you will automatically have to lie if you take this job. (Now I'm wondering if you just think every PR person you speak to is lying to you!)
posted by lunasol at 2:41 PM on May 6, 2017

I am a former journalist who now works as a data analyst. I handle traffic crash data for the state of New Mexico. My job involves basic programming in SAS, of which I knew nothing when I started. I did know how to use GIS (a geographic information system). None of that I learned in journalism.

But my writing skill helped distinguish me from other people with technical skills.
posted by maurreen at 7:03 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I left journalism in 2008, and many of my friends and family members thought my move was ill-advised and were extremely heartbroken over it. Some still are. They liked having a journalist in the family, like some love having a relative to who is a doctor. I am now a business development manager doing new business, existing client support, bid and certification management. Journalism is a terrible teacher of 99% of other roles and journalistic writing has very few real-world applications, in my opinion. But the important thing to remember is:
1. You will probably need to start your next job from scratch; and,
2. You will probably need to contend with the challenging, age-old question, how did I end up in sales?
I would recommend that as much as you can you stop looking for advice online and start reaching out to companies and people to individually understand the nature of your current level of training against the expectation of their industries and employment opportunities.
Gathering from what you write, you're making between $36,000 and $45,000 per year. You probably have student or other debt. You may be married. You definitely do not have children. The likelihood of making a complete success of your next job being non-journalistic will hinge on your ability to cope with unpleasant and possibly distasteful tasks like those you think may be lurking in PR, but are in fact everywhere.
Public relations can be great, a Penguin Pie explains. Exploring roles is comparatively simple, as long as you have an idea of the kind of non-profit or for-profit company you could see yourself working for. Recognise the skills gap and ask appropriate questions so you can buffer against your own feelings of trepidation, particularly if future employment prospects lack the IT infrastructure that separate you now from the back-end you may dread from coming into contact with.
posted by parmanparman at 7:26 AM on May 7, 2017

Journalism is a terrible teacher of 99% of other roles and journalistic writing has very few real-world applications, in my opinion.

My experience is completely the opposite. I tend not to realise how much I've learned as a journalist until I see how badly and verbosely my colleagues write. Being able to write concisely and clearly is a surprisingly rare and valuable skill.

I also find my critical questioning skills are way ahead of many people's. On the (thankfully rare) occasions I have to sit in meetings, I spend my whole time bringing people back to the point; reminding them that we are here to answer a specific question, not to just talk in the general area of the subject; pointing out what the current obstacles are to us getting the desired outcome; thinking laterally to identify possible future issues that haven't occurred to others, etc. They're exactly the same skills I used to use when interviewing politicians who wanted to speak in platitudes when I wanted to know: "How much will this cost? How will you pay for it? What about the people who will try to stop you because they think you should spend the money on blah instead?" etc.
posted by penguin pie at 9:38 AM on May 7, 2017 [4 favorites]