Newspaper reporter was ranked the fifth worst job in a recent ranking of two hundred career choices done by CareerCast. The four jobs ranked worse than reporter were oil rig worker, enlisted military soldier, dairy farmer and lumberjack.
Among the jobs ranked superior to newspaper reporter were janitor, garbage collector, and maid.
The rankings were based on five criteria: physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.
The physical demands of reporting, discounting the very odd hours involved, are pretty much non-existent. The pay is pitiful. The deadline stress is never-ending. And the ranking for hiring outlook is in the negative numbers.
So why, I have to ask myself, did I work as a print journalist for seventeen years? The answer resides in the pride I felt for providing the public with information, which I perceive as valuable, since it’s what we use to make everyday decisions. And once I started doing it I realized I was never going to suffer job-related boredom.
Here’s what it boils down to: whatever you do, if you don’t love it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Eric Poor 