Pursuing Journalism

By all means get a BA in Journalism.

There is much in journalism school which you will not learn in English or writing BA programs. Being a reporter is a tough job, and very few are good at it, and so the weeding out process of BA Journalism programs is welcomed.

I've been a journalist for 25 years on magazines and daily newspapers. My career was based on training I got at Defense Information School in the military. It was nuts and bolts journalism training, but incredibly vital stuff. To be a good reporter you need those basics. Without training, and the more training the better, you would be a fish out of water in a real newsroom. I've seen it a hundred times: otherwise intelligent people with writing skills and degrees in other fields who try to be reporters and can't do the job.

Professional journalism is much more than writing. Yes, you'd better be a good writer, and you'd better be a fast and creative writer too, but that's only part of the picture. There is much more to know. Journalism, primarily, is about covering a beat. The idea that journalism is something that anyone with good writing ability or a BA in English can do is erroneous. As an editor, when considering cub reporters, I prefer to get applications from those who have a BA in journalism, or at the very least some training in the basics of journalism via the military or a community college degree.

 

Don't listen to these other people on here. If this is what you want to do, then do it. I am almost done with my BA in Journalism in News Broadcasting. I got people saying the same thing, but in the end I am happy with my choice. I love journalism.

 

This is your best advice. Don't listen to people with dissenting opinions. Even though you asked for opinions you should ignore the ones that are contrary to what you already believe. If multiple people in the field of journalism tell you it sucks and to look somewhere else, ignore them. They're probably trying to keep you from achieving your dreams.

Besides, if your future career has no prospects and the degree is W O R T H L E S S and you decide to pursue something else where does that leave poor old jnmhorn?

[whispers] He might have to come out of his cognitive dissonance fog, and that would suck [/whispers]