Journalism – the worst career?
Newspaper reporting has fallen to that most envious depth amongst a list of 200 jobs.
Besides the usual 140 characters of political, financial, emotional and otherwise, raving and ranting that goes on on Twitter, including my own, I recently came across a tweet that read something along the lines of ‘newspaper reporting ranked as the worst job of 2013’.
Sure. A mighty revelation indeed!
As it turns out, it wasn't just a figment of my imagination after all. Those long endless, and almost of no avail, debates of how overworked, underpaid and over-stressed reporters were, finally made sense. Only, what intrigued me the most was a tweet, by a fellow reporter, which was not a random exercise of raving and ranting. It was backed by ‘scientific’ evidence. According to a website https://www.careercast.com/, which listed jobs from best to worst by ranking them on a criteria ranging from work environment, income to even work induced stress, newspaper reporting had been ranked as the worst job of 2013. Oh and there’s more. Newspaper reporting has fallen to that most envious depth amongst a list of 200 jobs.
Irrespective of exactly when this list came out, newspaper reporters were long aware of the dire situation they were in. Only, my fraternity likes to ignore such revelations.
So underneath this staggering weight of unfortunate perks, newspaper reporters are also told that that is the nature of the industry they work in and that is how it has always been. Unfortunately, while this is true, a profession like journalism needs to be taken seriously and if need be, its ways amended, not just by those fetching news but also by those who run media organisations.
For a large majority of reporters, reporting is not just a job — it’s an unexplained addiction to seek. As long as these addictions are allowed to be exploited, the meagre conditions will continue to persist.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 30th, 2013.
Sure. A mighty revelation indeed!
As it turns out, it wasn't just a figment of my imagination after all. Those long endless, and almost of no avail, debates of how overworked, underpaid and over-stressed reporters were, finally made sense. Only, what intrigued me the most was a tweet, by a fellow reporter, which was not a random exercise of raving and ranting. It was backed by ‘scientific’ evidence. According to a website https://www.careercast.com/, which listed jobs from best to worst by ranking them on a criteria ranging from work environment, income to even work induced stress, newspaper reporting had been ranked as the worst job of 2013. Oh and there’s more. Newspaper reporting has fallen to that most envious depth amongst a list of 200 jobs.
Irrespective of exactly when this list came out, newspaper reporters were long aware of the dire situation they were in. Only, my fraternity likes to ignore such revelations.
So underneath this staggering weight of unfortunate perks, newspaper reporters are also told that that is the nature of the industry they work in and that is how it has always been. Unfortunately, while this is true, a profession like journalism needs to be taken seriously and if need be, its ways amended, not just by those fetching news but also by those who run media organisations.
For a large majority of reporters, reporting is not just a job — it’s an unexplained addiction to seek. As long as these addictions are allowed to be exploited, the meagre conditions will continue to persist.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 30th, 2013.