‘Not on me to save the media industry’: Confessions of an early-career journalist leaving the industry

What’s sinking, in your opinion? That publication or the industry as a whole?

I mean, they’re a billion-dollar business. They’re going to be making lots of money for years to come. But their influence is eroding, and trust in them is eroding. In 10 years, I don’t see any mainstream publication being the voice that people are going to when they want to learn something. It’ll be smaller publications and independent actors online who have made names for themselves outside of the mainstream. We live in a society where we don’t need mainstream publications to share our perspectives. There’s less dependence on these institutions compared to previous generations.

So why did you decide to leave now?

I was looking for a new job for most of the year. I knew I didn’t want to work for a social media company because it’s similar to the mainstream media. There’s a lot of negative sentiment and scrutiny. I wanted to join an exciting industry, at a growing company. I’m making a lot more now than I was and more than I would have made if I’d worked at that publication for 10 years.

Why do you think many other journalists seem to be leaving the industry?

I’m sure the pandemic has a big role. It made you reassess what you’re spending your time and energy on. If it didn’t feel good to you, why keep doing it? It made it easier for those kinds of decisions. Especially for younger journalists. It’s not the mid-career people leaving the industry; it’s people in their first five to seven years. That’s a problem for the talent pipeline for the next generation of journalism. Maybe they’ll want to come back, but they are leaving because they are recognizing those same issues.

You get into journalism because you have this idealism to tell great stories, to change things about your community, to share underrepresented perspectives. I feel like it requires a lot of enthusiasm and energy to get some of these high-impact stories out the door. Then it’s like, why am I putting all this into this corporation? I’ll just tell stories on my own that I find myself. I have the experience as a journalist, and I don’t feel the burden of needing to conform to my editor because they’re worried about blowback from a 65-year-old white dude from California.

Mainstream media isn’t realizing that young people can build their own platforms to tell their own stories. I want to work on short films and mini documentaries on my own platforms. I don’t feel guilty leaving. It’s not on me to save the media industry.