In this article let’s take a look at advantages and disadvantages of being the journalist to understand whether becoming a journalist is worth it or not.
This is a most comprehensive article on this topic online so I would recommend you to bookmark and share the article.
So without any delay let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
Is becoming a journalist worth it?
Yes, becoming a journalist is definitely a good career option and worth it because as a journalist you not only learn new things every day but also meet new people, increase your network, and have high job satisfaction and happiness, and you can also learn new skills.
So you should become a journalist if you have interest in this field and you have skills like communication and networking, problem solving and critical thinking skills.
There are some disadvantages like workload and stress, political pressure, competition and lower salary.
Now lets see advantages and disadvantages of being a journalist.
Advantages and disadvantages of being a journalist
Advantages of being a journalist
Good salary
One of the main advantages is high salary of being a journalist.
The average salary of a journalist is 54000 dollars per annum in America but when you are initially starting your career in the journalism because you don’t have experience, You get low salary initially and to get higher salary, become a news editor and TV reporter you obviously have to become good at your work but this industry has a lot of competition so it is quite hard.
But apart from getting good salary as a journalist, You also get other benefits like free transportation, health facilities, and housing benefits if you are working for a good news channel or agency.
Challenging job
Another advantage is that it is a very challenging job because as a journalist you have to visit new places like sometimes war zones or riot places, You might get some injuries and also health and life risk when you are trying to investigate and cover news and as a journalist you will have to regularly travel to new places to find out new information about a new story, interview people and sometimes you need to go to foreign countries to get some news.
So if you want a new experience everyday which is very challenging and exciting rather than just being stuck at your office sitting in front of computer then journalism is a good choice for your career.
Job satisfaction
Another advantage is you can have high job satisfaction and work happiness as being a journalist.
It is because, You have huge power as a journalist to change the perception, thinking of people, present true information about particular incident to the people since if anything happens around the world in any sector people will try to get the news from the news channel or the new website.
Media and journalism is called to be the fourth pillar of democracy, because as a journalist, your main job is to investigate and gather news information and provide it in a balanced manner which is not biased to either side,
and you can let the common public know about what the government is doing, let people be aware about the operations and policies of the government and views of the opposition and how it would impact common people, also provide information about any popular incident, reveal the truth about those like if some famous personality has been murdered died, so media and journalism play important role in providing right information to the public & right information and knowledge is very important in decision making so journalists have a big power of ability to influence the people through their skill.
Meet new people
Another advantage is that you can meet new people every day if you become a journalist.
It is because the main job of a journalist is to investigate and collect stories and information about a particular incident and
in the process, the journalist would have to meet many people to gather the local stories and do many interviews in the process, The journalist would develop a strong network by meeting new people, like many of the journalists have good contact and touch with politicians and business people so being a journalist will help you get a strong network.
Variety of journalists
another advantage is that there are various types of journalists you can become like you can get into sports, broadcast, digital political business print entertainment environment community fashion investigative and many more types of journalism.
So depending upon your interest and passion you can choose anyone industry and become a good journalist in that field.
Press pass benefits
Another benefit if you can get press pass benefits by being a journalist.
There are several benefits of press pass like free pass and permission in specific events, free entry to museums, guarantee of the protection of the right to speech and freedom when the journalist gets arrested, and assistance while organising business trips.
And depending upon your country, You can get different benefits of press pass but in common cases you will get free entry in events like concerts and sports events and also get permission to get into backstage to get some news and do some interviews with people like politicians and sports people.
Learn new skills
Another advantage is that you can learn new skills everyday as a journalist.
For example you can learn and become good at communication skills by regularly interacting and talking with new people, and learn different perspectives & thought process of people, This will increase your mind & thinking,
You will also gain photography, article writing, investigation, writing headlines, working under stress, ability to do research, storytelling, attention to detail, finding out patterns in the information, problem solving, persistence, creativity, logical reasoning and many more skills.
And not just that, the very essence of journalism is to providing news information without being biased to the public, to get the news first you have to investigate and collect information, learn and analyse the information first so as a journalist you learn something new everyday either good or bad because
something will be happening around the world which you can cover as news & you are basically getting paid to learn new things and share it with others through writing articles about it on news websites and newspapers, so it is very great thing because learning new things will also increase your mindset and make you better person overall.
Share your views with others
And after getting a lot of experience in journalism, You can share your knowledge and ideas by publishing OP-EDs articles on popular online news websites and this can slowly build your personal brand and build your following online on social media because you will be named as the author of the articles on those news websites.
So as a journalist, You have the ability to share your views with thousands of people online and influence their mind.
These are all advantages, let’s see the disadvantages of being a journalist.
Disadvantages of being a journalist
Irregular working hours
One of the main disadvantages is irregular working hours of being a journalist.
It is because you need to travel quite frequently to different types of places, as I mentioned earlier you might also get into war zones, riot areas, & in order to get information and interview new people, You will have irregular working hours.
And it is also because your nature of job is very random, your job as a journalist is to provide news, there is always something happening in the world, for example
if you are a political journalist then you can have a lot of working hours because you need to cover various news stories about different politicians, interview them and write editorials on the news website.
Because of the fact that news can be created anytime, there’s no fixed timing, and it is not a surprise thing to see that most journalists work more than 50 hours every week and sometimes you also have to work during night sacrificing your sleep because your job is quite different which requires such kind of working schedule.
Stressful job
Another disadvantage is it is very stressful task because you will be working quite a lot of time every day.
They are two goals of every journalist,
- Provide real information & news without being biased
- Provide the news as fast as possible because every news organisation wants to provide the news first to the audience so that they can get more attention of the public
So to achieve this goals every time, journalist go through a lot of stress both physical and mental, and in the process of covering news if you get your facts wrong or provide the information incorrectly especially in any controversial topic then you can also get a lot of criticism and hatred by the audience online Which can increase your job stress and reduce your credibility of work.
A typical day of journalist involves a lot of travelling, meeting new people, talking to new people about information, investigating, analysing the information and finding out patterns, writing articles and editorials for news website and newspaper and submitting the work before the deadline.
And as I mentioned earlier that journalists have a lot of job satisfaction and ability to influence the audience mind by providing right information through news so politicians and other powerful people like businessmen can interfere in your work if you provide some news against them.
So it is not just about job pressure but you also have to handle your professional pressure from politicians and other powerful people.
These are all the advantages and disadvantages of being a journalist.
With that said let’s end the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about journalism.
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