Totally agree. Like I told Lynn, quite a few people I knew from the Daily Texan landed jobs at decent mid-sized city papers, and they’re doing great work. My old classmate Lomi is reporting on immigration for the Houston Chronicle. Another is at the Austin-American Statesman doing cops and courts. But the vast majority ended up venturing into journalism-adjacent professions, like PR, or doing communications for city governments and non-profits. A few are doing energy reporting for subscription industry news services.

The cost-benefit equation can limit your options and greatly affect your career trajectory. I graduated with $40,000 in debt and after a few years of freelancing at the local alt-weekly, I took a job as a copy editor at Chinese state media. The plan was to live on the cheap and pay down my debt. Eight years later I’m debt free but I spent a lot of time out of the writing game, not producing clips or reporting.

The up side is that there are more new digital media outlets and ways to make money as an independent reader-supported journalist, such as Patreon or Substack. I feel like I’m in a good position to get back on track, but I basically had to work for eight years to get to where some people start at, i.e. no debt and few financial obligations.