Hey, new grads: I can guarantee you a job in journalism

Joe Banks can guarantee you a career in journalism. Writing for the Ottawa Citizen, the Algonquin College j-prof offers the comforting guarantee to new grads. Of course, there are caveats…

1. Get a driver's license (most small towns don't have transit)
2. Be prepared to work for "starting" wages
3. Be prepared to leave the city for small town newspapers

Joe Banks can guarantee you a career in journalism. Writing for the Ottawa Citizen, the Algonquin College j-prof offers the comforting guarantee to new grads. Of course, there are caveats…

1. Get a driver's license (most small towns don't have transit)
2. Be prepared to work for "starting" wages
3. Be prepared to leave the city for small town newspapers

The third is usually the hardest for students to stomach. Most of them are more comfortable in the city: safe is easy, Banks says. "I've seen grads turn down excellent reporting jobs in small town Canada for high-paying communications work in the federal government — provided, of course, they possess the necessary bilingual requirements."

"Still others go to work as assistants for politicians at the local, provincial and federal levels. Others choose website production, and writing press releases for non-profits. One runs a yoga centre here, and others have been content with waiting tables in the ByWard Market rather than departing to take up the craft for which they were trained."

Meanwhile, small town papers are finding it more difficult to attract new journalists, similar to a town's struggle to attract skilled labourers and doctors. "From my angle as a former rural publisher, that makes it increasingly tough for these places to tell their own stories."

Why? Banks says that an Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association symposium in Edmonton last month, "editor after editor asked me where all the young grads are, even though I know we are pumping them out at a feverish pace all across this country, from both colleges and universities."

Banks advice is simple: go where the work is.