Forget the micropayment debate–the real backward-looking talk in journalism is coming not from the oldsters, but from the youngsters. At least that’s the way you’ll feel after reading New York University student Alvin Chang’s op-ed about his inability to find a journalism job:

I want someone to tell me I will be unemployed if I stay in journalism.

I don’t want to hear anyone else straddling the fence and saying, “No one knows what it’ll be like in the future.” I don’t want to hear optimistic but out-of-touch voices saying, “The industry will come around.” I don’t want to hear any more sarcastic, ungenuine comments like, “You’re screwed. Get out while you can.”

I’m sympathetic, although NYU Local, not Chang’s Washington Square News, is my preferred source for NYU news. I’m practically in Chang’s position, like thousands of other aspiring journalists. I’m hearing from papers that they’ve stopped offering paid internships, but if I like working for free I’m more than welcome. The others say to check back in a few years, ignorant (or pretending to be) of the structural changes that are going to decimate papers, recession or no.

It is frustrating. It’s frustrating that the only young people who get to practice journalism this summer are people with connections and money, or the very hardest-working and luckiest (well, that’s not so bad). But that’s no excuse for Alvin’s self-obsession:

It’s unfair to tell [students] that soon, the industry will turn around. [Recruiters] don’t know that. And they don’t know what the turnaround will look like — they don’t know whether that means we’ll have jobs.

They don’t know if we’ll ever get to do what we love.

Even if the industry turns around by 2010, what are we supposed to do for the next year? Live with our parents? Some publications tell us to keep in touch with them in case they are hiring in the future. But when will that be? At their convenience?

…..

Perhaps we’ll return to journalism one day when they let us in the door to the thing we love. But, at least for me, I can’t promise I’ll feel the same love the second time around.

It’s like he hasn’t heard there’s a recession on. General Motors fired 47,000 people today, and people who wanted to be bankers are even more screwed than aspiring journalists. And it’s not like the journalists Chang thinks pulled up the drawbridge after them have any job security. He wants a guaranteed job when even people with decades more experience don’t have that.

The whole situation sucks, especially if you were foolish enough to major in journalism. It’s worth cursing and crying about in private–I know I am.

But whining about it in public when people with families to support and mortgages to pay off are losing their jobs without the benefit of an NYU degree to fall back on–that’s just tacky.

For more on journalism’s martyrdom complex, Jack Shafer.

Hat tip to @10000words

Our Random Articles

• The 1st document to find when covering a college
• BBC to open up thousands of training documents
• Guidestar and the Joy of 990 Forms
• Interviewing tips from John Ullman's Investigative Reporting
• Politico memo shows what questions lead to quality content

More Links