Media and Communications Careers

The Communications field used to be so much simpler. Back in the good old days - a few hundred thousand years ago - all that was needed in order to communicate were a few deep grunts. One grunt for “dinner’s ready,” two grunts for “your loincloth is slipping” and three grunts for “that mastodon looks hungry.”

But, like everything else, the art of communication has evolved. Today, your voice can reach a heck of a lot further than to just the guy on the other side of the cave. Beginning with television, and then with the advent of the internet, the ability to convey information and opinion has changed drastically and profoundly.

Now something posted or blogged in one remote corner of the world can be instantly read by people everywhere. A rinky-dink cable program can have a major effect on changes in global thought. It probably won’t…but it’s possible.

Of course, ever since the new kids arrived on the block, other forms of communication are dying out. Physical newspapers, for example, are now used mainly as makeshift tarps for spackling projects. Newspapers and magazines are still alive and well…only now a majority of their presence is online. Even TV news shows are shifting focus to web content - you can hop onto a station’s site and download just about any report or interview your little heart desires, and in fact many people now get 100% of their news online. Or from their weekly chats with Grandpa Barry, although to be fair, he doesn’t provide the most unbiased accounts.

So there’s plenty of opportunity in the Media and Communications arenas, and plenty of money to be made there. Writers - especially technical writers - offer a valuable skill, and can get paid handsomely for it, depending on the size, scale and importance of the project, as well as the expertise required to cover a given subject intelligently.

Note that we’re not referring to the “writer” who lives in his parents’ basement well into his thirties and whose next sci-fi novel is going to “blow the genre out of the water.” Good luck to that guy. But most professional writers make in the 50k-60k range, which will pay for a ton of printer ink cartridges.

Editors and camera operators are in roughly the same ballpark (especially those working in a…ballpark); reporters and announcers can expect to make a bit less on average - more around 40k. And then there are all the offshoots that fall within this category… interpreters, photographers, sound engineers… basically, anyone involved in the process of telling a story or communicating information in any medium.

So…do you have things to say? Or…do you not have much to say, but you’re really good at saying it? Could be that you’re cut out for a Communications career. Now grab that pen, or microphone…or megaphone…and start adding to the conversation.

Careers In This Field