Persistence the Key in Race for Media Jobs

Forget the doomsayers who bemoan the contraction of the media industry. There’s plenty of work out there, argues Channel Seven’s Kate Osborn, as long as you’re prepared for some hard slog. And she says Gen Y journalism students could learn a thing or two, from RMIT’s Class of 2000.

To a wide-eyed student in 1998, getting a place in RMIT’s prestigious journalism course felt like winning the jackpot. One thousand had sat the entrance test, 140 had been interviewed and they’d accepted 50. It was only once we’d started that we were informed we had, in fact, won a booby prize. We’d signed ourselves up for a lifetime of unemployment and under-appreciation.

Kate Osborn graduating from RMIT in 2000

“Good morning," our lecturers would say. "Today we’ll be learning to write in an inverted pyramid. You have a news quiz tomorrow and an article due next week. Oh, and don’t forget, none of you will actually get jobs as journalists, so try not to get your hopes up."

This was to be the general theme of the next three years. It was certainly depressing, not to mention daunting. But it was for our own good. By the time we’d handed in our last assignments in November 2000, we were under no illusions about the grit that would be required to find gainful employment. We wouldn’t be handed a job on a platter - more likely we’d be serving drinks on platters until perseverance paid off.

In an attempt to soothe the nerves, faculty bosses wheeled in Eddie McGuire for a pep talk. I still have the notes I took, dated 24/10/00. He told us he wanted “to get us to fire about things.”

"If you want to lie down and die, do it," he said, "but get out the way of people who want to have a go."

I was pretty sure, at that stage, I would be one of the people lying down.

There are scores of journalism students, possibly hundreds, who are currently trying to get their first break in the industry. When I was at university, RMIT and Monash at Gippsland had the only specialist journalism courses in Victoria. Now, several institutions offer journalism degrees, and that means many more students vying for a very small number of jobs. The industry those graduates are entering is a different beast to the one I found myself joining at the end of 2000.

But while the landscape has changed, the fundamentals remain the same. Look at any byline in any newspaper, listen to any sign-off on the radio, and all those journalists have something in common - they persisted until they got a start, then stuck with it until they got to where they are now. They did it, so there’s no reason others can’t too. As proof, consider the examples of some of RMIT’s Class of 2000.

Kate Osborn at WIN News with Dennis Walter in 2005

The dux of that year was a book-smart girl who was still too timid to even ring people for interviews, i.e. me. Despite the shyness, I’d decided I wanted to work in television, inspired by a spellbinding week of work experience at Channel Ten. But I wasn’t so precious that I wouldn’t take any job, anywhere, so I sat the cadetship exams for the Herald Sun and The Age.

Around the same time, I did work experience at WIN Television in Ballarat. On my final day, one of the reporters in Albury resigned and the then-news director, Darren Pearce, told me he was probably going to give me a job, but would let me know on Monday. My Herald Sun cadetship interview was also on Monday, so Darren advised me to go along anyway, in case his job fell through. I met with then-Editor Peter Blunden in his high-rise office and spent most of the time gazing, mesmerised, out the window at the incredible view. Later that afternoon, the Herald Sun Cadetships Co-ordinator rang to say the job was mine. I asked him, shyly, if I could call him back, and then phoned WIN. Darren said I could train in Ballarat over summer and start in Albury in January. I called back the Co-ordinator at the Herald Sun and politely declined the job offer. He was displeased with my decision, but I was too flushed with relief to care.

Frankly, I was also a little annoyed. I’d been told for three solid years that I wasn’t going to get a job, only to find I got two on the same day. If there’s anything I took from my experience, it’s this - you need a combination of dumb luck and proactivity. You need to be in the right place at the right time, but to maximise your chances of that happening, you need to put yourself in as many places as possible. That means work experience, anywhere you can get it.

This was the approach taken by fellow student Jackie Epstein. Jackie was one of several in our year who wanted to be sports reporters, and one of the few who actually made it. She set about getting a foot in the door when she was still studying, by writing about netball for The Age.

"The advice I got was to get as much experience as you can and get as much published as you can, and I think that still rings true," she says.

Jackie thought her presence at The Age was well established, so she was shocked when she was overlooked for a traineeship. Undeterred, she started cold-calling people with a vigour she doubts she’d be capable of now, ringing them and saying she wanted to write, so could they please give her an opportunity. One of those people was the Head of Sport at the Herald Sun, and he just happened to need a netball reporter. She not only ended up with a full time position, she avoided the rounds merry-go-round that other Herald Sun cadets experience.

Jackie also believes it’s vital to collect mentors. Work experience students are a dime a dozen in newsrooms and are rarely remembered. The trick is to make yourself memorable, but for the right reasons. She endeared herself to people in the hope they’d invite, or at least allow, her back and they did. She cites Gerard Whateley, Anthony Hudson and Ashley Brown as sports reporters who took time out of their careers to help with hers.

Contacts helped Melissa Polimeni find her first job. She admits she was very worried about finding work post-university, and it wasn’t until March the following year that someone she’d met through voice training alerted her to a producing job at a new radio station, 3AK. From there, she shifted into the newsroom, but she believes her best move was relocating to Canberra. There, she worked for AAP and the ABC. Her advice is not to be afraid to go where the work is.

"Go regional!" she says. "Get out of Melbourne. It will be the best thing you do."

I also recommend learning one’s craft in regional and rural areas. I spent eighteen months at WIN in Albury-Wodonga and three-and-a-half years in Ballarat. At the time, they felt like dog years. I was miserable most of the time, and recall one News Director in Melbourne telling me to find a nice bloke to snuggle up to, as a distraction from yet another bleak Ballarat winter. That wasn’t a great idea. But learning the ropes in regional television was.

When I finally started working in Melbourne, I had more skills than I realised. I could report, but I could also present and produce. I could write a story in ten minutes, while other people were still trawling through tapes. I knew how to be creative and write around black holes when there was not enough vision. And I was comfortable covering anything from farming to football, because I’d once had to write not one, but two and sometimes three stories every day on any topic imaginable. The industry has changed to the point that it’s now possible to get a job in a metropolitan newsroom without prior television experience. Some don’t even have journalistic experience. But they are poorer for it. You’re better off making your mistakes where fewer people will see them.

James Thomson was one of only a handful of males in our year. He avoided the job-hunting perils by having a job waiting for him when he graduated – in business journalism. He concedes he knew very little about business or economics when he started a traineeship at BRW.  But eventually it sunk in, and he worked at BRW until he was poached for a job by Alan Kohler. Now at Private Media, James says when hiring, he looks for people with practical experience, be it through internships, unpaid work, even blogs. And they need to be open-minded.

"Everyone wants to be a political reporter or a sports reporter," he says, "but people with a passion for something different – business is a great example - do stand out. Internships with niche publications are a great way to get a taste of different areas."

Guy Stayner was another of our year’s handful of male students and another who graduated having already landed a job. Guy was a mature-age student, after working in education and defence. None of us was surprised when he won the coveted ABC cadetship. He already looked the part and fitted smoothly into television news bulletins. Guy didn't consider returning to the bottom of the career ladder a backwards move. He says he instantly found himself working harder than in his previous employment, but the job was far more interesting.

"That's the reward," he says.

While he's glad he made the switch, Guy warns that the rough and tumble of the media is not for everyone, and not forever. He believes young journalists focus too much attention on getting a start, and devote too little thought to life after journalism. After all, even with a dream job, you eventually wake up.

"Just be mindful of how long you see yourself in that environment," he says. "It can look great from watching a TV bulletin, but the industry can chew you up and spit you out."

Some of RMIT’s Class of 2000 gave journalism a shot and decided it wasn’t for them. Others didn't need to try, they knew when they finished their degrees they wanted to do something else. But many are still journalists.

Here is a list of where others ended up, or at least as comprehensive a list as LinkedIn and Google would allow me to compile:

- Nabila Ahmed: The Age; AFR; The Australian; AFR.

- Fleur Bainger: ABC Radio, SA/WA; Nova; White Noise Media, director/freelancer.

- Rachel Baker: ABC; SBS TV; freelancer, Seven & Ten; studying law.

- Stephen Blackey: technical writing; proof-reading; copy-editing

- Tali Borowski: PR Co-ordinator; Australian Jewish News; Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Communications Officer; PwC, Internal Communications Adviser.

- Anita Bulan: Soccer Australia, Media Officer; Sun-Herald; Documentary Producer; ACP; Production/Media Management, New York City.

- Shane Erickson: PhD, Speech Pathology; La Trobe University, Lecturer.

- Orietta Guerrera: The Age; The National Times, editor.

- Madeleine Heffernan: smartcompany.com.au, Deputy Editor

- Erika Jonsson: Shepparton News.

- Alicia Kish: Online radio, UK; Marketing Co-ordinator, AusAID Mongolia; Online & Label Manager, Ivy League Records.

- Chee Chee Leung: The Age; WWF, China; ACF, campaigner; Oxfam, Media Co-ordinator.

- Liz Minchin: The Age; Saturday Age, News Editor; Mediability, Media Trainer.

- Carol Nader: The Age.

- Stella Tilkeridis: Coles Myer, Corporate Affairs; Bupa, Media Adviser.

- Ria Voorhaar: BRW; Traveltrade; Greenpeace, Media Adviser; Freelancer, Berlin.

- Karishma Vyas: Agence France Presse, Video Reporter.

- Mandi Zonneveldt: Herald Sun; GHD, Media Relations; DSE; Regional Rail Link Authority, Communications Manager.

- Fleur Morrison: Ballarat Courier; Cancer Council of Victoria, Publications Manager.

The fact there are so many of us are still working in the media is testament to the fact that not all journalism graduates are destined for the employment scrap heap. There are jobs out there if you’re good enough and want one badly enough. The key is patience and persistence. If you're not willing to stick it out, it wasn't meant to be. There's no room for a Gen-Y sense of entitlement in this business. If the only job you can get is on a distant regional weekly paper, take it. You're not too good for it. In fact, after that sort of experience, you'll be better for it.

*Post-script: Not everything in Eddie McGuire's pep talk was terrifying. There were three things that have always remained with me. "Bored journalists write boring stories," he said. Too true. "Don’t think you’re a journalist until you are breaking stories." To this day, I call myself a reporter. And, one I recite more often than I care to admit: "Turn s*** into strawberry jam." Very few stories are ballbreakers. If you want to be covering The Big One, refer to Lesson Two, and break it.

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