There is no doubt journalism graduates of 2009, and those hoping to enter the media industry, face a huge challenge finding work. Places on graduate trainee schemes and paid internships are few and far between and entry level jobs on publications are virtually non-existent.
The near-daily reports of job cuts, publication closures and recruitment freezes doubtless do little to lessen graduate concerns their chosen industry is dead in the water, due in large part to the triumvirate forces of a weakened economy, falling advertising revenues and a saturated market where share of voice is made all the more hard-won by the unstoppable rise of social media.
But it is also true graduates of 2009 are entering their chosen profession as it goes through one of the most significant periods of change in its history - making this less a wake and more of a land grab.
Blogs and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube haven’t killed the traditional media but they have changed the way we access, publish and share news and other content.
With news breaking fastest and first online it is these channels that are feeding our newspapers, television and radio news. But the content doesn’t make itself. These new channels need hungry, innovative journalists. And PR needs social media-savvy rising stars to feed the machine from the other side and teach clients the value of social media engagement.
But to do that and to stand out from all the other job hunters students need to be not just journalists, but multi-/social media experts as capable of tweeting an image or creating a video-blog as they are of writing a snappy headline or conducting an interview.
The story about Morgan Stanley's 15-year-old intern Matthew Robson and his observations on the media certainly didn't produce the revolutionary findings Morgan Stanley would have us believe, but I feel it did say something about the future role of young people in the media.
'Old media" does need people like Matthew, and the wave of graduates who have grown up creating Facebook groups, recording podcasts and tweeting about their latest blogs, because that is what the ‘new media’ is going to be based around.
The opportunities are out there, but they’re not on the job pages of the Media Guardian anymore. They’re in the relationships fostered online and through the ability to create a platform on which to showcase the value of those relationships, whether that's writing a blog or sharing links and growing followers on Twitter or by taking unpaid work experience and driving home this message while there.
The class of 2009 will have to hunt down some unusual opportunities to launch their career, and they’ll have to work a little harder. There will be a lot of temping to pay the bills in the day and blogging late into the night.
But the ‘doers’ will survive. The ones who show the determination to rise to the challenge and use social media to unearth opportunities and differentiate themselves from the crowd are the ones that will be shaping the future of the media in the digital age.
Nikki Girvan is a freelance journalist and former commissioning editor in consumer publishing. She is now studying for an advanced certificate in PR at Birmingham City University. Here she writes about media graduates' views on the industry. She also blogs at www.nikkigirvan.co.uk.
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