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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 23/07/2025

I was joking with an editor colleague, another journalism vet with more years in than me, that I may have gone a smidge hard with my response to this question. His response: "The fact checkers cleared it... Or at least they would have if they were still employed."

What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?

I always preface my answer to this question by encouraging aspiring journalists to consider other careers. I'm 37 years old. I've been an editorial worker in the American media industry since entering the full-time workforce in 2010, and the industry's size, stability, and available growth opportunities for people who want to practice actual journalism have all declined precipitously since then. I still consistently work six days a week; even so, if I couldn't get health insurance through my wife's job, I probably would have had to hang it up awhile back. There are fewer and fewer career prospects for ethical journalists with each passing year (and, frankly, the non-ethical ones, too.) Freelancing rates have barely budged in two decades, books rarely sell well enough on their own to be a real living, and option sales to TV/film have really dried up, too. I could go on, but my general point is simply that journalism is a really hard way to make a not-great living in 2025, and probably won't get better any time soon. There's no shame in reevaluating whether that's a life you want for yourself.

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Curtis J. Alexander @curtisjalexander.com · 24/07/2025

This is such a sad truth. Partisan "journalism" is the only type that pays well. It's led society further down the polarization black hole because we have no common-sense voice reaching the mainstream. The algorithm pushes outrage, while real journalism gets buried. I wish you luck; we all need it

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