EFFIE BATEMAN | BRISBANE| CONTACT
A local journalism student has recently learnt the hard way that nobody really gives a crap about funding the arts.
Three years ago, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Ethan Watts had been ready to become the new Hunter S. Thompson by enrolling in Betoota Polytechnic’s school of journalism… even though Hunter S. Thompson didn’t study journalism, the thought still counts.
As he’d undertaken exciting assignments and learned everything he could about the craft, Ethan found himself pinballing between doing undercover exposes of elite Hollywood sex rings or going the almost famous route and writing for Rolling Stone.
Unfortunately, his dreams have quickly been quashed by the reality that no one has paid good money for journalism since the 90s.
As journalism has moved online and the modern audience’s attention span has significantly whittled down, thought pieces and well-researched articles have now been ditched in favour of fluff, which sees scores of fresh journos often working for free.
Magazine companies have quickly taken full advantage of the university curriculum’s 100-hour work placement policy by taking on a slew of interns, who all mistakenly believe they’ll be the one to get hired.
For Ethan, the long hours pumping out regurgitated content about D list celebrities have quickly soured his thoughts of the industry and has him rethinking his parent’s advice that he should have done a business degree.
As he polishes off another article about some influencer’s new baby, Ethan finds himself dragging the last couple of sentences out until 5:05 pm, so the editor doesn’t realise how much he hates it here.
More to come.
