Why I Decided to Leave the News Industry

Wow y'all this week has been very long for me. I had been looking forward to this week because the client event I helped planned is today, Thursday, and I was supposed to have a few 'influencer' meetings as I call them, with a few local businesses in Charleston I am hoping to work with! Well all of my plans came to a halt after I started throwing up on Sunday due to food poisoning from fish tacos - that sucked. If you didn't see on Instagram, I was in Greenville for the day visiting a bridal shop when I started to feel sick.  I woke up on Monday still feeling awful, so I wondered if maybe I could have covid or a stomach bug, but thankfully the test came back negative and I was back to normal on Wednesday! It's times like this though, that I am so thankful to be working for myself and others as an independent contractor because I am able to give myself time to rest and get better without worrying about PTO. 

When I quit my news job in Rock Hill, SC I didn't think that I would never go back into the news industry. I loved my job, I loved telling the stories of local athletes and coaches in the community, and lastly, I really enjoyed being on TV! Plus, I was really good at my job. Being a sports reporter had been my dream since I was 10 years old! Working for ESPN was a dream I thought for sure I would achieve. The hardest decision I have ever had to make was walking away, and closing a chapter I still wanted to be a part of. Unfortunately, the pros didn't outweigh the cons. 

I've thought about writing this blog post for a while, over a year actually. I'm not writing this to put down news personalities. I actually have many friends still in the news industry, and they are amazing at what they do! However, for me personally, it wasn't what God was calling me to do anymore. Below I'll explain the reality of working in the news industry that just didn't sit right with me. 

For starters, the pay. Whether you like the news or not, we can't live without it. Just think about that for a minute. How would you know what is going on in the world? It's not like you can trust what people write on Facebook and Twitter. Reporters work day in and day out to bring you what is happening in you community, state and country. I'm not going to discuss big network news stations because I never worked at one. Instead, I'm going to talk about news at the local level because that is where I had my experience. 

Local reporters are doing everything they can to bring you the TRUTH. I'm going to say it again for the people in the back - LOCAL REPORTERS ARE REPORTING THE TRUTH. I promise, from my experience, I never witnessed a story get blown out of proportion just for the sake of a headline. Local news is different. Every single reporter I worked with at the little local news station in Rock Hill, SC poured blood, sweat and tears into the stories we reported, and we always triple checked the facts to make sure our viewers were getting the TRUTH. But - back to the first reason I got out of news - the pay. After all of the hard work, the over time, and stress from the job, the pay just sucks. I made less than $30k a year before taxes. Luckily for me, my fiancé (boyfriend at the time), helped me out a lot, and my parents did too. When I moved to Charleston, and received numerous job offers from various stations, the pay increased, but not by much. Plus, I was told I wasn't allowed to work with anyone as an influencer if I were to accept one of the positions offered.

Secondly, it's toxic. Think about it - reporters are in the middle of all of the crap happening in our world every single day. Unfortunately, the saying 'if it bleeds, it leads' is true. Beautiful stories get pushed aside every single day for depressing stories that will make headlines. I personally didn't deal with this much at the station I worked at, but I knew it would happen the further I advanced in my career. I personally am not a political person at all. I never have been, and I never will be. I put all of my faith into God, not the government, and that's how I cope with the stress of this world. After leaving my news job, this is something I seriously thought about. Did I really want to jump back into a job that I had to show up to car accidents where a mother is balling her eyes out because her son died, a house fire where a family lost everything, or yet another story about the pandemic? I was offered news positions in Charleston, not sports, so these were the stories I could expect to tell. Yes, of course there would be wonderful, happy stories, but there would also be those depressing, sad stories, and I really wasn't looking forward to that. 

Lastly, the time commitment. One of the jobs I was offered in Charleston (really the only one I was considering) was going to be nightside (so 2:30 - 11:30 PM) Wed - Sun.  I would never get to go to church on Sundays, and with that schedule, I would have no social life, or time to see my family. I had just moved home, and was so excited to be close to my family again. They saw me almost every day for the first month lol! That schedule wasn't appealing to me, at all.

I personally have seen at least 5 great reporters step away from the news industry in the last year for similar, if not the same reasons I did. It sucks to be honest. The industry is losing GREAT reporters because of reasons that could be fixed. Better pay, and better work schedules. 

This blog post may be completely random to you, you may not care why I left the industry, but if you got to this point in the post, you must care a little bit, or maybe you're thinking about leaving the industry yourself. If that's you, you're the reason I wrote this blog post, and I am sorry it took me a year to do so. I know that leaving a career you worked so hard for feels like your life is over. Trust me, I cried my absolute heart out over my decision. It absolutely broke me into pieces. I still miss it to this day, but unfortunately the pros still don't outweigh the cons. If you are thinking about getting out of the industry, I would highly encourage you to write out the pros and cons, talk with your family about your decision, and think about what you could do instead that would make you happy (& maybe more money!). The biggest thing I had to realize is that I didn't give up on my dream of becoming a sports reporter! I was a sports reporter! For three years! And I won an award, told incredible stories, and made relationships I will never forget! Lastly, pray about it. I promise God will give you answers if you listen. 

Want to talk to me about it? Send me an email ([email protected]) or a DM. I would be happy to talk with you about how I'm doing now, and what my journey has looked like!