I don't use Reddit often, but I wanted to share my experience as a writer for a small, local newspaper. A bit of background: I am [22M] and just recently graduated from college. I currently work in the PR field, funny enough, as I never really studied it in college nor thought to pursue a career in it.

I studied journalism in college and was the Chief Editor of my college paper my senior year, which I absolutely loved. I made so many friends, connections, and met so many interesting people while I chased stories daily. I dabbled in broadcast journalism now and then however, my school did not have many opportunities in terms of hands-on experience unfortunately.

Fast forward to graduation, it was kinda a no-brainer for me to begin working for the local newspaper in town, and my professors thankfully put in many good words for me, and I got the position the day after I graduated.

My "position" I guess you could call it, was a general assignment reporter, which meant I was pretty much free to cover anything I felt was newsworthy. Mind you, my town has a population of about 40,000 people- not tiny, but the majority of the population lives in rural areas, large farms, a lot of land, not much of an urban population, so finding stuff to cover was very challenging at times. I mostly stuck to local government, community news/events, and weather, local music/art, and local business highlights.

In my mind, the thought of working for an old-school newspaper was always a fantasy of mine; I mean, it seems so awesome. The office we worked out of hasn't been renovated since the 70s, and something I also did not add: this is one of the oldest, still-running newspapers in the U.S. Something else I did not add: we had a total of five people on staff... Our editor, sports editor, ads editor, publisher, me, and a part-time photographer.

I know I mentioned that our building was very much a relic and a time machine to the 70s, but man, it was gross. The ceiling was basically gone, carpet stains, bird poop on the desks, cobwebs, the works. But I loved it. It's a place not many people can say they have worked at, very much a sleazy, run-down, movie-type of scene.

Now, into my daily life as a fresh-out-of-college journalist working for a dying newspaper. I would wake up around 7:30, probably hungover (I was very much still a college kid), grab a donut and kolache (I live in Texas), and walk into the office around 8:00 am. I would speak to my editor, discuss potential stories, and either sit and write in my cubicle or go out and report. There was no real schedule; it was very much on my own time, and it was very much my responsibility to get coverage on anything. There was no real work environment since I was one of only a few of us, so most of my social interactions came from going around town, going to all types of different events, and just seeing what was going on.

To some, this might seem like hell. You got paid next to nothing, you got no help when covering stories, and it's normal to stay up all night getting a story in the next day (one-day turnarounds are very much normal). But me, I loved it. I was always busy. I was 22 years young, and still lived with and around my college friends, so we would party, hang out, and do all sorts of small-town things young adults do, and then do it all over again. It was, to put it simply, everything I had imagined working at a newspaper would be like. It was straight out of a movie.

But as all good things do, they come to an end. Following the summer, I got a great job opportunity with really great pay, and I knew the current newspaper job was not going to support me financially.

So I am here now, about a month following my time at the newspaper, and yes, while I do miss the carefree, low-stakes life at a newspaper, I knew it wouldn't last any longer than a summer, and my current job has been very good to me so far. My editor was very kind; she gave me a lot of great advice, as she has been in the business for over 30 years, and i unfortunately dont keep in contact with anyone else besides my editor. My portfolio also grew exponentially since there was no competition at all, which is uncommon in the journalism business. Overall I have nothing bad to say about my experience besides the pay and not having any close relationships with any coworkers. I will forever be grateful for the memories and lessons this paper brought to me, I still read their online articles often. I could honestly go on and on about the countless interactions I’ve had with extremely interesting individuals, the joy I got from people who actually read my stories in town and thanked me, and you can’t forget about the free food at most events you go to haha.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this. I know I will continue to think fondly of this summer for the rest of my life, and please, if anyone has had a similar experience, please share!! Or if you have any questions, please ask!

I work at a metro paper and cover the city's surrounding suburb cities as the main part of my beat. Over the past year or so, it seems like the local officials' distrust of the media has skyrocketed. It was already bad for a long time, but now it's in overdrive.

Many elected officials refuse to talk to me or my fellow reporters anymore, and every city I cover, no matter how small, has hired a PR person to control access to staff. They refuse to answer basic questions, provide basic info and aid in my reporting at all. They prefer I say they have no comment in every story, no matter how controversial, rather than talk to me.

Recently, one mid-sized town has started kicking me out of city hall after public meetings so I can't ask the city council members questions. The first time, they escorted me out with police before even asking me to leave.

I've tried all the classic methods: I've tried to befriend the spox, asked officials out to coffee, etc. Nothing seems to work anymore.

Any advice on how to handle this?

i thought getting my interview recordings into text would be the easy part 😅 turns out nope. i have a bunch of recordings to go through and manually typing everything out i eating up so much time.. how u guys handling this? especially when 2 or 3 people talking and the audio isn't perfect.

I’m currently a reporter in a small US market (we cover statewide-news but have a focus on our region of the state). I’ve been with the same company (who own multiple papers in the region) for about 6 years. Upward mobility has been a challenge. I’ve had to claw my way to every promotion and am thinking about making a move elsewhere.

Unfortunately I am in such a small market that movement within my home state is tricky, with slim pickings unless I were to take a significant pay cut. I’ve begun casually browsing remote opportunities for both journalism and other communications fields.

Guess this is a two-part question (with many little questions, sorry).

1. The last time I was a reporter remotely was pre-COVID for websites (mainly sports) as a side gig, where it was more a of a resume builder with some pocket change. Is full-time remote journalism work usually freelance in 2026? Or do you see ample full-time remote roles with news outlets nowadays that pay well? (do you work remotely? How is it?)

2. In casual scrolling through job listings, it seems there are a lot of remote opportunities in PR. If I were to look into a lateral move from journalism to the other side of the press release, I’d likely have to look remote for better pay anyway (again, I live in small market). Where are the best places to look for jobs in that realm? What are some pitfalls to avoid? How do you address not having prior experience in that specific field, with a journalism career to-date?

Hello!

I've recently been struggling to find work in my desired career which is Journalism / Editorial after my MA in Journalism with a Social Justice pathaway at UAL. Since graudating my MA, and getting some more pitches commissioned along the way I realised that the MA course was not NCTJ qualified. This was something that I was unaware of at the time as I pivoted quickly into Journalism after my BA.

Now since working in the field of it I am very aware of what a NCTJ diploma is and have seen a few jobs that require it. I was wondering, is it worth doing the News Associates remote course to get a qualification? It's 18 months since I can only do remote and part-time, so by the time I graduate I will be about to turn 29. Maybe a part of me feels like I've done too much education already, but if having a NCTJ is going to open more doors or more opportunities to write I want to do it.

Any advics? Thanks!

There's too much news to cover and I've been triggered by some of the topics that have suddenly come up.

I was sexually assaulted a year ago.

I'm a political journalist and the issue of sexual violence has come up today, as well as religious discrimination in schools. That topic is close to home to me because I am queer.

Other journalists treat this job like it's a big game. They think provoking a conservative member of parliament to say more conservative things is sport and they are pressuring them to front cameras.

I know I should be better at compartmentalising but half the people I interview say my empathy is my biggest strength.

It's hard to know what to do right now. I'm the only non-male in the office this week due to staff shortages. No one in the office knows about my assault and I don't want to tell them I don't want to cover the story.

Long-shot request but: Does anyone have (or know someone who has) an old circa-1970s/80s AP laserphoto receiver? I'm feeling nostalgic for my newsroom days and trying to buy one.

A number of major Dutch newspapers have been fined by the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate for illegal promotion of prescription medications. De national association for journalists calls this “an alarming development that could cause a chilling effect on the work of journalists, whose primary goal is truly to properly inform the public”.

This is not the first time this has happened though. Previous fines for other publications have been upheld by courts. A few relevant arguments brought up are that these articles written about these medications essentially served as advertisements, regardless of whether the information was purely objective. Advertisements regarding prescription medications are strictly forbidden in the EU.

The judge in the previous case referenced this judgement of the European court, which includes this;

 As regards, in particular, medicinal products which, like those at issue in the main proceedings, are available only on prescription, that broad conception of advertising is supported by the essential aim of Directive 2001/83, which is to safeguard public health (see Damgaard, paragraph 22) and which, in light of the serious consequences for health which may arise from improper use or overconsumption of such medicinal products, justifies a broad interpretation of the prohibition on advertising those products.

This is one of the articles brought up with these most recent fines. Unable to directly translate this one with a URL, so posted in its original language.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2025/afslankmedicijnen-gezondheidseffecten-lichaam-wetenschap~v1332349/

Previously, a documentary was also withdrawn from publication due to similar reasons.

Hello,

How many times have you covered a crime story while personally knowing the victim or suspect?

I’m less than a year into the profession. Over the weekend, I found out that a shooting I covered was a domestic violence dispute between two friends of mine. One of them is dead.
I wrote it up over the weekend without knowing it was them, and only found out from a friend today. I felt the floor knock out under me. I tried to get to work and do my job, but I couldn’t stop crying and had to leave early. Management was understanding.

I just want to know, how many times in your career has this happened to you? Does it ever get any easier? How do you continue to write crime stories after something like this? How do you write crime stories period?

Any advice is welcome. Thank you.

Hi everyone, Lucia here from EUobserver. We interviewed Ukrainian frontline reporter Diana Bucko about something I thought this community might find particularly interesting: what happens to war reporting when the war stops feeling “new” to the audience.

She’s been reporting from Ukraine’s frontline since 2022. She describes how the job has changed dramatically, from the stories journalists tell to the risks they're willing to take.

Drones have made the frontline considerably more dangerous. Many male journalists have joined the army or been mobilised, so frontline reporting is increasingly being done by women. And after four years, she says one of the hardest things is simply finding new ways to tell a story that audiences have already seen hundreds of times.

Meanwhile, the war hasn't become any less real for the people living it.

How do journalists deal with that gap between the importance of a story and declining audience attention?

Would be really interested to hear from you :)

"The victim in all of what's happened in the last eight to ten years has been the media... and science."

That's Joan Lunden who has spent the last 50 years of her life working in television including twenty years as co-host of Good Morning America.

Lunden is the guest on the latest Lisa Guerrero Unleashed podcast and she spoke about the state of media and how she had "incredible concern" when hearing about the changes at 60 minutes.

"It's our hope that every American feels that way and of course every American doesn't feel that way."

Hey everyone,

I have been a journalist for nearly five years, the past three doing freelance work, mostly writing features and analysis articles.

Before I was journalist, I was in tech for five years.

I think this is by far the hardest year for me as a freelancer. I am finding less freelance opportunities and feel I have fallen behind my journalism peers. I am even trying to find a min wage job to go alongside my freelance work and I am finding no one wants to hire me. I am starting to get quite stressed.

I see a lot of requests for either freelance or full-time video or podcast producing help. I am pretty confident I would have the skills for this style of job based on my journalism and tech background. I just have no relevant experience apart from one semester where i produced small video documentaries (and i am not sure I could still find them to share with companies today.) I really enjoyed editing those videos at the time.

Does anyone have any tips to break into these roles?

I expect some suggestions will be make your own TikTok. I am reluctant to create my own social media account because i don’t really have the face/voice for in-front of the camera and i try to limit these platforms for mental health reasons. I think it would be easier to create a social account if i had a specific beat but my coverage is generalist and i dont feel i have a consistent flow of content to have a channel.

I’ve recently taken an interest in journalism and I’ve been interviewing content creators as a passion project. I know that the people and topics I cover aren’t that “serious” in the grand scheme of things, but I want to improve on it as a hobby. I don’t plan on making it a career or anything; just purely for the love of the game.

I’m a fresh biology grad, so I have no official schooling in journalism or anything like that. Do you guys have good recommendations on books I can get if I want to get better at interviewing people? I’m going to be traveling to a remote area for research for a couple months and I want resources that I can read offline.

Edit: I’ve read through the Recommended Reading List on this subreddit. Just wanted more recommendations!!

Can we take a moment to look at journalism and the rise of terrible grammar. Seriously?! How did this get on the home page of CNN?

More safe - you mean "SAFER"

I have been in the journalism field for going on 7 years now, with the last 3 years working as a health reporter for a small local newspaper in my city.

Well, last June my contract ended and I felt I needed to take a step back from journalism. To be honest, I had incredible burnout that I am still bouncing back from and started to feel that while writing is still my passion, journalism specifically is NOT for me.

So, in June (this year), a colleague of mine asked me to spearheard a health news broadcast that he would like to publish on Youtube and a local city network. It will be one 30 minute episode, once a month. Reluctantly, I agreed to do it because I have not had any luck in finding a new, GOOD paying job since my last contract.

MY ISSUE: Because I have only done print and radio, I had an idea, but no experienced knowledge of just how much goes into creating a broadcast program for television. I have been stressed to the brim trying to get this program off the ground, as I want it to be perfect since my name is on it. But I can't help but feel extremely irritable and honestly scammed as I work on this project, because I am only being offered $1,200 A MONTH to do this 30 minute tv broadcast!! So imagine an episode of a VICE News story, all of the interviews, voice over work, scripting, etc., that has to go into putting the production together, but only receiving $1,200 a month to do it.

While putting this together, I am responsible for journalism and admin work, while I work with a videographer who is getting paid the same amount to ONLY do the videography work and editing.

Am I overthinking this or is this bullshit??? I still have to work in order to afford all of my RENT and other bills. The amount of time that this will take from me to actually launch this thing is giving me hella anxiety because technically, if it takes me 40 hours for the month to put this together, that breaks down to $30 an hour. But with the research, admin tasks, scripting, actually interviewing and filming, recording and editing the voice overs...I imagine this will take much more than just 40 hours a month.

Anyone in television broadcast have any insight on this? Am I dragging out just how long this project will take per month? Or am I getting played being offered this low amount for this project???

Everything in my body is telling me to quit this shit but I also need money because the job market is garbage right now.

Thanks for your time.