Media Entrepreneurship: Week 10

Takeaways from the Mel Snyder reading:

~ I found it interesting how incredibly focused the document was on the healthcare industry. In a way, it’s refreshing that Mr. Snyder has such a clear idea about what kind field will be most conducive to entrepreneurial journalism in the future. However, I am personally a bit disappointed, given that that I’m honestly just not very interested in working in the healthcare industry.

~ The projected salary for journalism majors is downright dismal. Additionally, the fact that employment is expected to decline by 11% is just incredibly depressing. I mean being told that I’ll never make money as a journalism major is a pretty normal occurrence, but I never realized how much worse the statistics had gotten as a result of Covid. Honestly, I never even thought to check. I’m not completely sure what to do with this information.

~ I kind of expected the Substack skepticism, because I feel the same way. It was good to know that I’m not the only person who’s still worried about the difficulty of actually making a profit on newsletters. However, I don’t know if Mr. Snyder was assuming that newsletters would be a full time job or more of a side gig. I definitely see the issues with trying it full time, just assuming that it will take off. However, I always saw it more as a thing to do alongside a regular job, only switching to full time if it became financially feasible to do so, and I don’t see the harm in that.

Questions:

~ What exactly would one do while working as a writer/communicator in the healthcare or high tech areas? I wasn’t entirely clear on what specific jobs or careers Mr. Snyder was suggesting that we go into.

~ How would we go about finding or applying for these jobs? What qualifications or experiences would be necessary to do so?

~ Are there other feasible ways for Journalism grads to make better wages while working in communications? If so what are they?